ministers became men of wealth and influence. This opened a door to men of corrupt minds who pretended to be christians for the sake of riches and power. These set themselves up over all other christians, and the chief minister at Rome was called the Papa, or Pope. This was the beginning of what we call the papacy or popery. Hundreds of years

passed along, and the Popes grew more and more powerful, until the Pope of Rome became not only a sovereign himself, but assumed sovereignty over all the kings and nations of the earth.

To keep up their dignity and grandeur, the Pope determined to erect a grand building. The old basilica, erected by Constantine, was in ruins. These ruins were cleared away, and on the spot the magnificent building, of which you have a sketch in the picture, was erected. This great work was begun soon after the year 1500. The first design was even more grand and extensive than this, but it could not be accomplished chiefly for want of money, and this was not effected without resorting, before it was completed, to the most disgraceful means for obtaining the necessary funds. To get money for the purpose the Pope sent men over Europe to sell what were called "indulgences." These deceitful papers were neither more nor less than licences to sin, promising forgiveness of sin on payment of so much money. This scandalous and horrible trade was carried on for some time, until Luther, a German monk, boldly exposed the wickedness; and this led to the great German Reformation from popery.

Many popes, and many eminent architects and artists,

died before the body of the building was finished, for it was not done in less than one hundred years; and three hundred years passed away before all the work, as now seen, was completed.

We cannot now tell you all about the grandeur of this magnificent building outside and inside; but when we tell you that it is supposed to have cost from first to last upwards of twelve millions of English pounds sterling, you may conclude that it must be, as it certainly is, one of the most magnificent structures ever erected by man upon the face of the earth.

But if you ask what is it for? we at once tell you that it is not so much for the worship of God, as for the display of human pomp. Never, we believe, since it was opened, has the gospel of Christ, as preached by Paul and Peter, been once heard beneath its mighty dome. But instead of that there have been performed again and again the solemn mummeries of a vain superstition, and the pompous pageantries of a proud priesthood. When we think of this, how do those indignant lines of the pious Dr. Watts come into recollection: "Unthinking wretches! could ye hope to please A God, a Spirit, with such toys as these!"

Or rather how ought we to listen to the voice of the Eternal, "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word."

Yes we hope that all our young readers who have their bibles in their hands and can read them, will know better than to think for one moment that God, their great Father, will be pleased with them, or any who only offer to him an outside show of worship while in their hearts they do not love him. You would not serve your own father or mother so, and so you must never pretend to serve Him who says, "My son give me thine heart."

Do not mistake us; we may admire any of the works of grandeur and beauty which the science, and art, and industry of man may produce, but we must not put these in the place of loving God ourselves. God is more pleased with the worship that comes to him from the sincere and grateful hearts of those who are gathered within some humble shed, than from mock worshippers, though they stand on a marble pavement and beneath a colossal dome.

And this reminds us of those verses in "The Cottager's Saturday Night" which, in our younger days, we committed to memory, and which we give below, in the hope that our young friends will do so too; and then, should the pompous ceremonies of popery ever be imposed upon their notice, they may retire from the gaudy display, and calling to mind these lines, contrast the pompous parade of the one with the humble piety of the other.

The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They round the ingle form a circle wide;
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha' bible, ance his father's pride:
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,

His laggart haffets wearin' thin and bare,

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion wi' judicious care,

And 'Let us worship God,' he says, with solemn air.

They chant their artless notes in simple guise,
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name,
Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:

Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they wi' our Creator's praise.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abraham was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amelek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild seraphic fire;

Or other holy seers that tuned the sacred lyre.

Perhaps the christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed:
How He, who bore in heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head;
How his first followers and servants sped,
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land;
How he, who lone in Patmos banished,

Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,

And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by heaven's command.

Then kneeling down to heaven's eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays;
"Hope springs exulting on triumphing wing,"
That thus they all shall meet in future days;
There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet still more dear,

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere.

Compared with this, how poor religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's every grace, except the heart!
The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,

May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul,
And in His book of life the inmate poor enrol.

WHEN I WAS A BOY.

I WANT to tell you some things which happened to me when I was a boy. I am now two and twenty.

I was born at C

miles from London. My pious parents were anxious to bring me up in the fear of God. My name was Joseph; and I was sent to school along with my brother William, who was three years older than myself. William always went to school without trouble, but Joseph wanted to do as he liked to do. He was very daring and full of mischief, and instead of doing as his brother did in keeping company with good boys and going home when he came from school, he used to go along with rude boys, and often got into mischief. So this little boy, whose infant lips had been taught by his loving mother to pray to Jesus and to love him, forgot all the good things she had told him. One morning after school, instead of coming home, he went along with two naughty boys