Intelligence. THE history of the past month is pregnant with important interest to all concerned for the future of Methodism. Most of our readers are, doubtless, familiar with such matters of Conference information as have oozed out through the medium of the weekly journals. Meagre as are the scraps of intelligence which have thus come before the public, they are sufficient to justify the growing conviction that symptoms of disintegration in the clique are increasing, and that being ill at ease as regards outward circumstances, they begin to quarrel amongst themselves. The half-pathetic and wholly-petulant remarks of Dr. Bunting in regard to the Watchman's comments on the "infirmity of the Dr.'s late colleague is one evidence of this. The response of Mr. Arthur, in which he appears suddenly to have awoke to a fear lest the Conference should be thought to visit offences against their own discipline more heavily than sins against God, points also in the same direction. The remarks of the Rev. William Bunting on the case of the Rev. Daniel Walton; the colloquies between the "saintly Jackson and the President, together with a variety of minor circumstances, all seem to indicate that want of unity of feeling, and that peevish dissatisfaction with each other which are the sure precursors of speedy dissolution. If, in addition to the determined attitude of Reformers, any other outer circumstances were wanting to point to the same issue, the loss of nearly 11,000 members during the year, and the resignation of such men as the Revs. Messrs. Steward and Collier from conscientious disapproval of Conference discipline, were alone sufficient. The 60,000l. already promised towards the proposed 100,000 is pointed to as an unmistakeable evidence of the soundness of the great body of Methodists. To our minds the circumstance bears no such aspect. It is no uncommon thing to see a dying man a few hours before death rally to apparent convalescence, astonishing and delighting his friends with his wondrous accession of vigour. The brain-stricken bird will dart through the air with the speed of an arrow towards the sky, just before it falls to the earth an inanimate clod. A watch, when out of repair, will "run down," performing the revolutions of hours in a few seconds. A candle when just burnt out will suddenly send forth a bright flame before it expires in complete and permanent darkness; and just so would it appear to be with the reign of Conferencism. The proceedings of the Delegates representing the various Reform societies have been reported at length in the Wesleyan Times, and contain so much of interest that we trust every one of our readers has before this become fully familiar with them. The results appear to have been all that the most ardent Reformers could have desired. One of the first acts of the meeting was to re-affirm the original principles of the movement, and repeat their watchword, "No secession! No surrender! No supplies!" The accounts of the year's operations were most encouraging, and resolves for future progress were such as gave full assurance of undiminished interest and augmented energy in the promoters of this "wicked agitation." Neither amalgamation with any of the existing offshoots from Methodism, nor organization into a separate church, is the desire of the majority of Reformers. They are pledged to a higher mission than merely securing for themselves comfort in Zion; and instead of relaxing their efforts, new ground is to be broken-the Reform is to be pushed in Ireland. Money, although not the "salt" of the Reform movement, must nevertheless be had; and accordingly a pledge to raise an annual sum of 5,000l. for the next ten years is entered into. Our space precludes us from even summarizing the proceedings at the meeting, nor is it necessary; but we rejoice in its issue, as the very best calculated to promote the great end of the whole movement; namely, a complete and radical reform in the church polity of Wesleyan Methodism. FALSE WORLD, THOU LY'ST. Poetry. Are painted clay : Thy cunning can but pack the cards, Thou canst not play; Thy game at weakest, still thou vy'st; Thou art not what thou seem'st; false world, thou ly'st. Thy tinsel bosom seems a mint Of new-coined treasure; A paradise that has no stint, No change, no measure; A painted cask, but nothing in't, Nor wealth, nor pleasure; Vain earth that falsely thus comply'st With man; vain man! that thou rely'st On earth; vain man, thou dot'st; vain earth, thou ly'st! What mean dull souls, in this high measure, Welcome, welcome is the message Borne on its bright beams to me; Message from the heavenly Father, Calling me from earth away, To that land where never cometh Darkness o'er the face of day. Let me go, the day is breaking; High and higher o'er the hills Streams the radiance, flowing freely From the fount in thousand rills; Sure I know it comes from Heaven, Naught of earth could be so bright; And the glory still increasing, Soon will faith be lost in sight. Let me go, the day is breaking, Blissful day which knows no end; On my Saviour's promise trusting From all evil to defend ; I can pass the grave's dark portals I shall meet Him, face to face, TRUST. The same old baffling questions! O, my friend, I cannot answer them. In vain I send Of reason's sun and stars. I cannot learn cern The Wesley Banner, AND CHRISTIAN FAMILY VISITOR. OCTOBER, 1853. Essays, Articles, and Sketches. LET THE HOME BE HAPPY. MUCH doubt cannot be entertained of the soundness of the conclusion, to which many writers observant of the various conditions of society have come, as to the pretty equally diffused amount of happiness among men. A palace makes a more obvious show than a cottage; and a man of wealth and of independent fortune has means of much larger self-indulgence than he whose daily toil, followed up by his weekly wages, is barely sufficient to supply him with the necessaries of life. But with this disparity of circumstances, there may be a much greater equality of enjoyment of existence than at first view seems possible under such difference of position. Observation and experience will furnish many a living illustration of our Saviour's saying, that a "man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth." Not only is there an interest in the "simple anuals of the poor," but the every-day enjoyments of the less favoured of fortune yield an amount of happiness that, if realized by some of the luxurious sons of wealth, might remind them of the experience of Darius, who, in his flight from the Macedonian conqueror, receiving a cup of cold water from a peasant, declared that it was the most delicious draught that he had drunk in his whole life. The rays of the morning sun fall as brightly upon the home of the mill-hand as upon the mansion of the mill-owner; nor does the free air less willingly play around the home of the cottager than the dwelling of the prince. And there are sources of home comfort, not more rich and abundant in their supply to the occupant of a carriage than to him whose "hands minister to his own necessities." He that allays his thirst, does it as well and as effectually if done out of the pint cup, as he who has drunk from a well, and who can do no more than appease his appetite. Were a roomy dwelling, a rich suite of furniture, a table overspread with luxuries, and an ample supply of notes in the bank, necessary to a happy homestead, small, indeed, would be the amount of human happiness, and small the number who would enjoy life. He who has made the earth man's temporary habitation, and "whose tender mercies are over all His works," has not so limited the extent of human enjoyment, nor made its existence depend on such circumstances. Cheerfulness, good temper, tact, and principle, will make any man's fireside happy, and will diffuse a warmth of kindly feeling throughout the domestic circle. Here the husband and the wife must alike combine their efforts to insure this result. It is a sacred duty. It is a mutual policy. The two must row in the same boat, and must pull the same way, and with a simultaneous stroke too. Carelessness and indifference in either will be a fly spoiling the pot of ointment -will be another serpent in man's earthly paradise. Let the two earnestly unite to preserve this Eden in its peace and in its purity, and, however lowly and humble the spot, no circumstances of life can prevent its being a happy home. It is no fancy picture. It is an actual scene taken from life-from what is called humble life. The evening meal is ready; the small room, that is at once the kitchen, the dining-room, and the parlour, is as neat and clean as human industry and taste can make it; that invaluable treasure to a working man, a wife thoroughly domesticated, waits the return of her husband, at the close of his day's toil, and, though she is not decked in silks and satins, her neat dress, and her cleanly person, and her smiling welcome, have a charm that gold cannot purchase, and that fashionable millinery cannot give; the man of toil is wending his cheerful way homeward. The day is far spent; aye, and it has been hard spent, too, by this son of toil; but he is hastening to the reward of his industry. He has a happy home, and he anticipates the renewed pleasure of home enjoyments for a few sweet short hours, before he retires to rest to recruit his strength for the next day's labours. Happy scene! Angels gladly hover over it. And where is the man that, having a home, would not fain make every possible sacrifice to enjoy at the close of his day's labour such a home? Industry, sobriety, frugality, cleanliness, and mutual good-temper will produce such a scene in every cottage in the kingdom. It yields unfeigned pleasure to the man of benevolence, when entering the dwellings of the industrious classes, to see their walls adorned with prints, framed and unframed. Picture galleries, in which men of wealth store the collections of a Poussin, a Teniers, a Correggio, a Raffaelle, or some other great artists, might disdain indeed to receive into their aristocratic society the sketches and designs that meet the eye in these plebeian dwellings. But as indications of a taste, which, with ampler means, would seek a higher style of amateur gratification, the lover of the masses looks with pleasure on these humble productions of art; which, while they square with the contents of the purse of their possessor, indicate that the tenants of the humble dwelling only want the means and the culture to vie in taste and selection with a Peel, a Stafford, or a Vernon. But there is a picture of life, at times, within these plebeian abodes unequalled in value and effect by the highest productions of art. In this picture, a cottage can always rival a palace: the poor stands an equal chance with the rich; the man of toil, at the plough-tail or at the smithy, is the peer of the nobleman, and on the same footing as the prince. He can exhibit the living picture of a happy home-an exhibition for which many a one, whose drawingroom is adorned with the choice works of the greatest masters, would fain exchange the collections of art which it has taken them and their sires generations to accumulate. The homes of the poor and of the working classes may be the abodes of peace, and the very paradise of humanity. A few well-selected books-one's own, or obtained from the public library— will well employ the time of the "good man of the house" in reading to his industrious wife, while she, good soul, busy as the bee, plies the needle and thread in repairing some damage to the garment, or in preparing fresh clothing for her household. How different this scene, and how superior to that of one whose evenings are spent in the alehouse with a drunken crew of bacchanalians; while his wife, ragged, squalid, and driven by his excesses to habits of negligence and idleness, listlessly waits his return from his midnight revels, or dreads the coming home of the drunken maniac, whom dire necessity forces her to call husband! Or, if the evening is fair, and the season inviting, and green fields and rural lanes are within easy reach, as soon as the good housewife has put away her tea-things, with what pleasure will this happy pair spend their hour of enjoyment amid scenes and objects that probably remind them of their early loves, and of their first meetings. Godliness and cultivated intellect will make an oasis of any spot on earth. Science and grace are open to all. The temple of knowledge and the temple of mercy know not any monopoly. Whosoever will come may come to both, sure of a hearty reception. Truth and holiness value man, and not the accidents of his birth or the peculiarities of his condition. The philosopher and the saint may be combined under the roof of the lowly; and he who goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening, may close the day amid the endearments of the domestic circle, with all the elevated sentiments and pleasure of intellect enlightened with knowledge and sanctified by grace. Happy will it be for society when every working man's home is a scene of peace, arising from the cultivation of the domestic affections in connection with mental improvement and Christian holiness. Mechanics and artizans will then have still less ground than ever for envying the luxurious ease of the wealthy, or for attaching the slightest importance to the accidents of birth and to the pretensions of man-made nobility. Evening hours will glide away only too quickly, because they pass so pleasantly, under one's own roof; and the labours of the day will have their full compensation in the cheerfulness and bliss inspired in the working man's bosom by the possession of a Happy Home. GLIMPSES OF LIFE AMONG THE ARAB TRIBES OF MESOPOTAMIA. TOWARDS the close of a short series of papers which recently appeared in this Magazine, on the history of the archæological discoveries now taking place in Assyria, we intimated our intention of giving our readers an insight into the curious customs and usages, and the unique mode of life characterizing the present nomadic inhabitants of those far eastern realms. It is a singular circumstance, and eminently noteworthy, that while the Assyrian people have passed away for ever, leaving no representatives among the nations of the earth, the brave and chivalric race that now roam the desolate sites of their once sumptuous cities can boast of an ancestry coeval with the earlier epochs of the Assyrian empire. The descendants of Ishmael, as free, as liberty-loving, and as intractable as in the days of the patriarchs, now encamp on the ruined palaces of the ancient conquerors and despots of the east, and even lend their aid in rescuing from their gigantic graves the sculptured annals and hoarded treasures of a mighty nation that had perished long after the Ishmaelitish people had made themselves known and feared in oriental lands. In those wonderful galleries of pictorial history which, after having been sealed from human eye for nearly three thousand years, are now exposed to the inquisitive gaze and study of the present generation, we behold vivid representations of the life of those hitherto dim and distant times, which the possessors of a vigorous imagination will not fail to take advantage of in rehearsing afresh the story of the past. Strange and exciting are the secrets of antiquity thus unfolded to us from day to day, as intelligence of new disclosures ever and anon arrive; or as the sphinx-like silence of the tenants of these huge catacombs is broken by the decipherment of inscriptions graven under the directions of Sennacherib, or his royal predecessors, in which we read the current tales of their own day-the wars, the expeditious, the trade, the commercings, and the customs of their most familiar life. This life, however, is now for ever extinct and silent; but outside and around its petrified memorials, there still wanders a people whose habits and pursuits. are worthy of our investigation, though they present few points of resemblance to those of the swarming populations that dwelt in these regions in the old Titanic times of Nineveh and Babylon. We refer, of course, to the Bedouins of the Mesopotamian plains. Taking Mr. Layard's recent work as our text-book, |