men's meeting commenced at the vicarage of the village in which he resides :

:

66 Collecting, as it does, a few of kindred minds, and bringing them into contact with each other, and with a zealous minister of the Gospel, who has the spiritual welfare of the young very near his heart, the meetings are, I hope, very profitable. The first was held October 1st, 1851, since which time the attendance has been good; the number of young men is now about twenty, and gradually increasing.

"To your Association much is due, for I believe it very materially aided in the formation of our Society. Within a few weeks the Exhibition Tract, dated September 7th,' Does Pleasure pay?' was put into the hands of a young man, a slave to pleasure and evil companions. On reading it, according to promise, with a prayer for the Holy Spirit's teaching, he was struck in finding precisely his own feelings portrayed. Another tract of your series, Young Man, I say unto thee arise,' bowed him a penitent at the foot of the cross; and he now desires to walk with that Saviour whom he despised. 'Be not weary in well doing, for in due season you shall reap if you faint not.""

One member states:

"I have met with several young men who had received some of the tracts during the Exhibition, and were thereby induced to attend the Bible Classes, where the Word and Spirit of God converted their hearts, and they have now become servants of the Lord as teachers in RAGGED SCHOOLS.'

A young man, in November, wrote to the Committee :—

"About four months since I was led to feel that I was a great sinner, and as if there were no hope of pardon. One of your tracts was put into my hand on a Sunday afternoon, and I attended your Bilble Class that same day; and there I was taught that, through the grace of God, there was hope;⚫ though my sins were as scarlet, yet they might be as wool.'" To many, the devotional meetings of the Association "have been found to be indeed Penuels, where they had prevailed with God." A young man, engaged in a large banking house, forwards this pleasing testimony:

"The short time I remained in the City I attended the

devotional meetings, &c., and was highly benefited by them. I can say, from my heart, I never attended prayer meetings like those of the Young Men's Christian Association; the fervency of spirit, the zeal, the love and good feeling of those who interceded with God for each other, impressed me much; and had the Committee done nothing more than establish these meetings, I feel that they might expect much harvest when the Great Shepherd shall appear to acknowledge works of faith and labours of love done on earth.'"

A member of the Association speaks definitely of the blessed results of these gatherings.

"Two of our number have been brought to an experimental knowledge of 'the truth as it is in Jesus,' during the past year; and they both, I believe, thank the Lord that they were brought to our house. They consider, however, the Bible Classes and Prayer Meetings of the Association to have been greatly blessed to them, and with the public ministry of the Word, to have been the instrumentality used in their conversion. They have both lately joined churches, one the Episcopal, the other a Congregational.”

Another young man writes:

"When I look at the careless indifference with which I once stifled the upbraidings of my conscience, and treated the advice of my friends, and then the earnest desire I now feel to walk with God, I find that I have been the subject of Divine grace. This, to me, indeed gracious result, was effected through attending your devotional meetings, and by the kind advice given to me. I know now the joy which I feel through faith in the merits of Christ's atonement alone for the forgiveness of my sins.”

The Committee add one more testimony:

"Two members of your Association kindly asked me to attend your meetings, where I derived much benefit, but I found more from being called aside by them, when they persuaded me to give up my sins and turn to Him who has said, "Whosoever believeth on Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting life.' They kindly prayed with me; and through these means I hope I was led to see the folly of my sins, and became accepted of God."

The Bible-classes have been also eminently blessed; and testimonies have come in from the metropolitan and provincial branches of the Association too numerous to be here detailed. The whole report is to us one of the most gratifying we have ever seen. On many of our elder readers it possesses peculiar claims, and we earnestly invite them to become at once identified with a society so conducive to their best interests, and conducted on the all-embracing, loving, joyous principles of the truth which is in Christ Jesus.

PRECEPTIVE BIOGRAPHY.

DIOGENES.

THERE is no saying, perhaps, more contemptible than the old proverb, "Those who live at Rome must do as Rome does." Precedent and conventionalism keep the world at a stand still, and stereotype the general mind. A man is ridiculed or condemned, very often, simply because he does not move according to pattern, and is consequently not understood. To break the line of common place and unmeaning proprieties, is too often to incur implacable dislike, obtain a bad name, or lose caste, and drop out of notice by the great simpletons who rule the coarser world.

We have a very remarkable instance of this in the case before us. A wit, a hard-thinking, far-seeing philosopher, and a man deeply read in the true theory of honesty, and the principles of sound and practical common sense, DIOGENES, the cynic, is nevertheless known to us only as a very rude fellow, who could speak disrespectfully even to royalty itself! Little is remembered of him beyond the fact, that he lived in a tub like a biped bull dog, and once lighted a candle to look for an honest man. Yet the world has seen few greater men—not in point of character, for that appears to have been questionablebut for the full prophetic majesty of much that he thought, said, and did.

He was the son of a banker at Sinope, whence he was banished, for being privy to some transactions of his father's in coining false money. He was sent to Athens, where he studied philosophy under Antisthenes. The master was well

chosen-a shrewd pleader, a disciple of Socrates, and a man of earnest thought and sententious speech. He seems to have been gifted also with quick discernment, and that kind of intuition which enabled him at once to discover, appreciate, and direct, the varied talents of his pupils. To one, not overgifted with intelligence, he is recorded to have said, that he only wanted new wit and new books, to make him a learned man. He told another, who was too well versed in profitless attainments, and who asked him where he should begin his studies, that his first step was to unlearn the evil he was master of.

Diogenes met with no very favorable reception; but at last prevailed on Antisthenes to receive him. But shewing little disposition to learn, or being, more probably, too much like his master, in the honest intrepidity of his spirit, he had a rough time of it at first, and Antisthenes was compelled to resort to corporal punishment. "Strike!" said the stedfast scholar,"strike, for your staff shall never drive me away, so long as you can teach me anything." Here he learned "to endure hardness," and gathered up, and cherished those honest views of humanity and the hollowness of the world, which were subsequently developed in his great sayings and doings. An old biography says of him, " that he lyved simply as one that was out of his country, and comforted himself much with beholding the little mouse which neither desired chamber, nor feared the darke, nor was desirous more of one meat than another." The mouse was probably no unusual visitant; but how few of those who had watched its fleet and noiseless movements could, or would, have so moralized upon it? The meanest of God's creatures may be sanctified by holy contemplation. To think our portion enough, to fear nothing, and to esteem every good the best, is true and sublime philosophy. Yet because our cynic was of this school, he has been described as one of those extraordinary men, who run everything to extremity without excepting reason itself.”

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He saw that he could do without the thousand and one appliances, conveniences, and luxuries, that made slaves of many, and he had the manliness to dare the world, and crucify gentility. The worshippers of Mars and Mammon-and there are

thousands of them in our own age and country-have never forgiven his unparalleled rudeness to Alexander. The story is too well known to need repetition, but our narrative would be imperfect without it. The conqueror paid him a visit, and asked what he could do for him? "Stand out of the sunshine," said Diogenes curtly. The retainers tossed their plumed heads, and laughing savagely, said as plainly as looks could say it-" Cut him down!" But their wiser master turned thoughtfully away, and muttered audibly, "If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." This was but one of many testimonies borne by those who owed him nothing, to the real greatness of his character. Plato, of whom Diogenes probably thought no more than did his master Antisthenes;* called him a "Socrates run mad"-a philosopher, in fact, with the daring eccentricity that refused to move only in the orbit of worldly conformity. He used to call himself a vagabond, who had neither house nor country, was obliged to beg, was ill-clothed, and lived from hand to mouth; and yet, says Ælian, "He took as much pride in these things, as Alexander could in the conquest of the world." He might honestly have taken more. A beggar it is not likely that he ever was, for he had learned the great art of living upon almost nothing; and to lack house, country, and clothing, is far more honorable than to lead an army on to rapine and murder.

Diogenes spent a great part of his life at Corinth, studying more how he might get rid of the ordinary conveniencies of life, than augment them. He had but one cloak, which served him for all purposes-a staff, a wallet, and a wooden bowl. But seeing a boy drink out of the hollow of his hand, he threw the last away, and thanked the gods that he could do without it. The story of his tub was simply this-he had given directions to have a cell made for him, but being tired of waiting for it, took to a tun or barrel, as the tale describes it. Here he gave forth his oracles; but few heeded them. The Greeks in his day, as was the case some centuries later, "spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." But

He always described Plato as proud, disdainful, and high-minded, and once hearing a war-horse neighing, scornfully said, "O Plato, thou wouldst have made a goodly horse!"