and guard from pursuing evil. The old year has not all been good: the new will be better. Something will surely be in the new, to unravel old perplexities, to loosen old bonds, and lighten old burdens. The snares that took us, the temptations that hindered us, belonged to the old; they have no part in the new. The old had many difficulties; but, in the new, the rough places will be made plain.

Sweet is the voice of the charmer. Dull and tiresome are the familiar tones of the preacher. In the face of such winsome promises will he be heard? Yet he must speak; not to lessen the New-Year's joy, but to heighten it; not to filch from its gladness, but to enrich it with blessings realized, as well as hoped for.

What, then, can there be in the new which was not in the old ? What untoward thing marred the past, that may not spoil the future? The New Year means only another year,-another like those gone by.

Can you, amidst visions of the beginning, endure to look upon a sombre picture of the end?—The scene is wondrous fair: earth can show but few more lovely. All things beautiful here put on their richest glories; and the soft air breathes upon you, as if the genius of life, crowned with all sweet flowers, were passing by, were passing over the crowded graves which strangely fill this nook of Eden. The names on the many stones are not, for the most part, those of the dwellers in this lovely land. Why came they here to die? Nay, they came to live; for the place had a great fame of life; and the stricken ones came hither, they said, in search of health. Poor, hapless folk! They brought with them in them. fell disease, which no change of clime could take away; and, as they grew feebler and felt their hold on life slackening. they wondered much whether the

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fame of the healthful land were true.

Are you setting out into the New Year on a quest for good, for peace, for joy? Then beware of carrying with you that which would make all these impossible. It seems to you that the coming time will, somehow, bring a fresh atmosphere of life, in which duty will be more easily done, and burdens more easily borne. And thus the New Year becomes no more than the old daily snare of To-morrow; but on a grander scale, and baited with more dangerous lure.

Good friend, do not turn away from these serious words, which seem so ill-fitted to the happy season. That your hopes may be more than fulfilled, consent to pause, for a little space, on the year's threshold. Let not the future have all your thought and good resolve. If there is to be glad, golden harvest then, there must be wise and patient sowing now.

Mark it, divide it as you will, ⚫ time runs on the same. Do not hope that its mere flight can change you. In yourself must the change be. Wherein you have aforetime faltered, Where you have

seek new power. erred, seek new wisdom. Where you have mourned helplessly, seek a new simplicity of trust in God.

Have you found your way to the New-Year's Gate, still bowing under the load of unforgiven sin, with your soul all hampered and bound with uncured evil? There will not be a day, in all the coming year, on which it will be more true that the Saviour has made atonement for your sins; not a day on which His invitation, bidding you to His salvation, can be more real and loving than now. Enter, then, at the same time, a New Year and a new life; and in perfect peace you shall know that, with the old year, "old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

Trusting in Him who effects this

great change, learning to know, and girding ourselves to do, His holy will, we feel that the time now is filled with His blessing; and knowing that the time to come is all assuredly in His power, for our use and benefit, let us stand to-day, looking up, as well as forward, and in faith, as well as hope, wishing one another

"A HAPPY NEW YEAR."
G. S. R.

WORDS AT THE GRAVE OF A CELEBRATED MISSIONARY. THERE, (said the Rev. William Legge, as he stood at the foot of the grave of Dr. Morison, the Chinese Missionary,) there lies what was once a noble, manly form, with a bright and smiling countenance. Low is now laid the head that was crowned with honour. Beamless is the eye that glowed with purest friendship. Silent is the tongue of the eloquent; and the heart that once burned with the purest fire, and beat with the highest hope, has now become a clod of the valley. Here I assist in burying one whose friendship I enjoyed for forty-seven years, a friendship that knew no interruption. The heart that lies among the clods was a kind, and true, and faithful heart, if ever such beat in the bosom of man. Many a young man could tell of the counsel which flowed from those silent lips. No one in the great metropolis ever exerted himself more for the welfare of young Ministers; and many, who are not privileged to be here to-day, will feel a thrill of solemn interest when they think how oft he helped them, how kindly he counselled, and how much he befriended.

I can shed no tear. I am far more happy than I am sad. I rejoice that the conflict is over with the enemy that assailed him, and harassed him for five-and-twenty years. It was not a common amount of suffering, as we have heard. A strange,

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as well as powerful, enemy is Death, He is not a native of this earth, but an intruder; he came in by sin, and will be conquered only by Him who paid the penalty of transgression. In the case of him whose remains are now deposited, we see the most ample skill, and the most devoted perseverance, of medical men entering the contest with that enemy which has ended, after many years, as such contests always end, in man lying down in the dust. Medical science, and the affectionate concern and selfdenying efforts ofkindred and friends, could not avert the issue. The battle will be waged no more. Our brother fought well, laboured well, and sleeps well; and upon that coffin rests the eye of Him who hath said he shall rise incorruptible and undefiled at the last day.

ADVICE TO YOUNG PEOPLE ON MARRIAGE.

Ir is a matter to be considered, and it cannot be considered too seriously, that the marriage-bond is for life, and life is a long time,—at least, though all is uncertain, there is every probability that it will be perhaps twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years from the time the tie is formed; for life, with whatever changes of health and fortune time may bring; for life, with all kinds of tests which will try both temper and principle. If you were going on a journey for a few months, you would be very careful what kind of companions you chose to go with; if you had to choose a fellow-servant with whom you would serve the same master for a twelvemonth, you would guard very carefully against getting a bad-tempered or an unprincipled one; and so, too, if you were choosing a partner for business. Am I wrong in saying, that engagements for life are often formed with less thought than it would be only wise to exercise about any of the lighter ties of which I

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have spoken? and am I not right in saying that there should be unspeakably more ?

Don't form engagements too early; and I mean by that, don't on the one hand pay, or on the other hand receive, those special attentions which are generally the preliminaries to such engagements; and no special attention should ever be paid or encouraged except with that view. Wait till you know what you are likely to be, and what you are likely to want; wait till your judgment is matured; wait till you see a reasonable prospect, at no long distance of time, of settling in life. It may be admitted that very early engagements have sometimes turned out well. For long years, and with the additional test of wide local separation, the hearts which had plighted their faith to each other have continued true as the needle to the pole, neither of them for a single moment thinking of change; and at length their hopes were fulfilled in a happy union. But as frequently-more frequently, perhaps it has been quite otherwise. Length of time and intercourse with society have matured the views of at least one of the parties; perhaps, too, fortune has smiled on him, and then the thought has arisen, "I might have done better," and after a while the resolve has been formed, and been acted out by all manner of petty shifts and evasions, and often with heartless cruelty, "I will do better." Or, held by honour or by fear to his bond, he has gone to the altar as though he were going to be sacrificed.

Another evil-perhaps a more common one, where the parties continue to live in the same town-is, that, impatient of delay, they rush into an imprudently early marriage. Now, I don't object to early marriages; I object only to those that are imprudently early; and I will tell you when I think they are so. When a

young couple marry with a house only half or a quarter furnished, trusting to complete their furnishing afterwards, although their income is barely sufficient to meet the claims of subsistence; that is imprudently early or, when they get into debt to furnish their house, that is imprudently early. I wish I could instil into your minds, if it be not already there, a dread, an utter horror, of debt. It deadens conscience; it is the parent of all kinds of evasion, and trickery, and falsehood; it oppresses the spirit; it mars domestic peace; and, sooner or later, in most cases, it presses the subjects of it down to the earth in humiliation and tears. Whatever you do, don't begin life in debt. I quite admit that there are energetic spirits, who, gifted with strong health and indomitable perseverance, can rise above the disadvantages of such a bad start, and retrieve themselves; but I do not believe that one in twenty does it, and, in any case, it is a hazardous venture. As a rule, if a married couple begin in debt, they will feel the grinding influence of it all their days. Wait two, three, half-a-dozen, years, rather than begin in debt. Cowper has a humorous piece entitled, "Pairing-time Anticipated." He represents the birds, on one of those wintry days which are so bright and warm that it seems as though old Father Winter had reached forth his icy hand and stolen a day right out of the middle of Spring, as meeting in copse and grove to discuss "affairs of love." A grave old bullfinch gave them warning :

"My friends! be cautious how ye treat
The subject upon which we meet;
I fear we shall have winter yet."

By his good-will would keep us single,
Till yonder heaven and earth shall
mingle;

Or (which is likelier to befall)
Till death exterminate us all.
I marry without more ado;

My dear Dick Redcap, what say you?'"

Dick, "tweedling, ogling, bridling," attested his approval, and so did all the rest; and they at once paired off, and began to build their nests :

"But, though the birds were thus in haste,
The leaves came on not quite so fast;
And Destiny, that sometimes bears
An aspect stern on man's affairs,
Not altogether smiled on theirs."

The wind shifted into the east, and then into the north; rain came, and snow; the nests were soaked, the birds were chilled, the eggs were addled :

:

"Soon every father-bird and mother

Grew quarrelsome, and peck'd each other;
Parted without the least regret,
Except that they had ever met;
And learned, in future, to be wiser
Than to neglect a good adviser."
This is the moral :-

"Misses! the tale that I relate

This lesson seems to carry,-
Choose not alone a proper mate,
But proper time to marry."

Get to

There is another thing. know, if you can, the stock from which the party springs with whom you have an idea of linking your fortunes for life. Moral as well as physical qualities must be considered. Dirty, slatternly, brawling mothers have sometimes cleanly, tidy, gentle daughters; but, I am afraid, not often. In most cases the scold and the slattern are reproduced. So, on the other side, if a young man's parents are unprincipled, ill-tempered, disorderly, the chances are sadly against his being otherwise.

It is one of the greatest mistakes which young people make in this matter, to form engagements clandestinely. Rural walks are taken;

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meetings are appointed, and held; gifts and letters are exchanged; and the very last persons who know what is going forward are the parents; and, when they do get to know about it, the affections of their children are irretrievably gone. It is too often assumed that parents are the natural enemies of all youthful affection, and that they are by all means to be foiled and evaded. All this is undutiful, treacherous, wrong. There are none who love you with so pure and disinterested a love as theirs. They have toiled for you, watched over you in sickness, strained every nerve that they might give you a good education and a fair start in life, have trembled and prayed for you. You would consult them if you were taking a situation, or entering on business; why not consult them on this? Their only solicitude is for you; and, though it is quite possible that parents may be mistaken, it is much more likely that they will be right; and, at all events, they will have something to say worth consideration. Do nothing by stealth; and deem it a strong reason for hesitation if you have cause to think that your parents will disapprove.

Just one thing more: Are you a Christian ? Then take steps to

marriage "only in the Lord." That is the Lord's own law. On other matters there should be congeniality of taste and pursuit, or there can be no prospect of real happiness. How much more is it desirable on this, the greatest concern of all! How needful it is that you should have all possible help and sympathy from him or her who is to be the dearest to you in the world, and not that there should be opposition, or, at best, the cold permission to take your way to heaven alone! How desirable it is that your prayers should go up to heaven as the blended offering of kindred hearts; that with unity