Diogenes was a real man amongst these smatterers, and understood them well. When he had truths worth telling (and when had he not?) he would call the folks around him; but one by one they would drop off. Knowing their desultory habits, he would sing pleasantly, and back they flocked. Wisdom, then as now, might lift up her voice in vain; but music, or mesmerism, a black man, or a scarlet coat, would bring together a perfect cloud of idlers. Thus caught by guile, our philosopher would growl out his honest indignation—“To hear foolishness, ye run apace; but to hear any weighty matter you scarce put forth your foot."

The tongue runs many a match against time in these days as it did then, but our philosopher was choice and guarded in his talk

"Not a word spake he more than ther' was nede,
And that was said in forme and reverence,
And short and quick, and full of high sentence;
Souning in moral virtue was his speche,

And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche."

He saw that conversation was a two-edged sword, telling for good or evil, both on speaker and hearer. "Men" said he, ought not to minister any communication, but such as should be fruitful, and edify both alike." Much of the philosophy of the old Greeks, and especially that of our cynic, was eminently practical and utilitarian. Aristotle being asked what he got by it, answered nobly, "I can do that unbidden, which some can scarce do under compulsion of the law." Diogenes had no sympathy with mere abstractions; if a thing were right, it was to be acted out. Hence he launched his withering invectives against all inconsistencies-in high places as well as low, in the prince no less than the slave, in the sage no less than the simple. He ridiculed those scholars who could use their scholarship only to detect the want of it in others, whilst they lost sight of its nobler ends. He reproved musicians who could admire harmony in sounds, and yet saw no need of it in minds; the discords of real life were to him infinitely more momentous than the dissonance of tinkling brass. He rebuked those who in their study of the far-off worlds of space, lost sight of their He denounced the orator who spoke truth, but lived a

own.

lie; and the people who gave the gods thanks for health whilst their riotous living was really undermining it.

His wit was caustic, and too seldom used with that delicacy which gives it value. This was without doubt one of the chief reasons which brought so much ill-will into play against him, though the truth that lurked in his maxims and rejoinders, contributed still more to this end. Passing the house of a rude fellow who had risen in the world, and had written over the door, "No churl shall enter here;" he wrote below it "How then does the master get in?" Being once asked what beast bites the worst? he answered, "Of wild beasts, a slanderer of tame, a flatterer." Gold, he said, looked so wan, not without reason, as so many rogues were lying in wait for it. Entering a small town which had huge gates, he cried out in feigned alarm, "Ho! there, shut the gates, or your town will get out!" To one who asked him a foolish question, he made no reply. Why do you say nothing ?" observed a friend. Looking down with true cynic dignity, he rejoined "Silence is the proper answer to a foolish question."

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With all his doggedness, Diogenes was a man of sterling mind. Even in his least amiable sayings there is a vein of downright honesty that speaks well for him. He has left it on record, that good and laudable qualities, with rigid discipline and strict notions of virtue, were the best friends a man could have; that to deserve a benefit, is better than to have it; that rich men without learning, are but sheep with golden fleeces; that the best thing in life is liberty; and that to know one's self is the best passport in society.

Strange that principles, so old as these, should have so few practical exponents, even in the present day! The fault rests not certainly with these old philosophers. Far less, indeed, are they answerable for the fate of these truths, than many who preach them in our own day. The life with them was an honest reflex of the creed, and they dared to embody them in all their naked and unsophisticated lineaments. They understood greatness far better than we do, who place it often in the accidents of life rather than in the royalty of genius-in mental capacity and majesty. Diogenes the slave, was greater than Alexander, the world's master. Position and outward

status are nothing to the man whose mind is an empire. Our cynic knew this. He spent the greater part of his life at Corinth. As he was crossing to the island of Ægina, he was taken by pirates, who carried him into Crete, and there exposed him to sale. He answered the crier who asked him what he could do, that "he knew how to command men;" and perceiving Xeniades, a Corinthian, going by, he said in his hearing, "Sell me to that gentlemen, for he wants a master." He was sold, and became tutor to his master's children, and governor of his house. His injudicious friends, whose ideas never rose beyond outward circumstances, pitied him, and talked of his redemption. "You are fools," said he, somewhat discourteously, "the lions are not slaves to those who feed them-they are the servants of the lions."

Well done Diogenes! The present day owes you much. The full glory of truth is seldom developed till the age that gave it birth has passed away. To a crooked and perverse generation

it must needs be distasteful; but when time has toned down its intensity, without impairing its inherent power, and the immediate occasion that called it forth is forgotten, its value begins to be realized. The little leaven in its first phase causes only fermentation, but it no sooner permeates the mass than it gives a new and better consistency to the whole. Time acts on it as on material things, moulding that which was once terrible into beauty. When our admiration is undisturbed by passion or prejudice, we begin, for the truth's sake, to think more charitably of its author.

It was pre-eminently so with reference to Diogenes. Even the youth of his own day were taught to hate him. The Greek school-boys stood around him, shouting out "Beware! he bites, he bites!" But looking scornfully upon them, he would say, "Tush! cowards, never fear, the dog does not eat beet." Yet when this man died at the ripe old age of four score years and ten, his scholars fought and clamored for the honor of burying him; and the elders being called in to stay the tumult, gave him a pompous funeral; raised over him a fair tomb, and set a pillar, surmounted with the figure of a dog, above it. His epitaph, unlike those of modern day, was the first witness that dared speak truth about him; and his wise sayings have been his "body's balmer" to our own time.

JOSHUA AND JESUS.

"Israel rejoice, now Joshua leads,
He'll bring your tribes to rest,
So far the Saviour's name exceeds,
The ruler and the priest."

Watts.

AT the bidding of Joshua the sun rested on Gibeon, and the moon in Ajalon. Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness withdraws not his shining, but reigns for ever and ever. This sun shall no more go down, neither shall this moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.

Joshua brought Israel forward when Moses was dead. Jesus too, takes us up where Moses leaves us. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.

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Joshua began his ministry by planting his foot in the Jordan Jesus, by descending into the same stream, to be baptised of John.

Joshua passed that river, and entered into the promised land. Jesus, our forerunner, is for us entered into the heavenly Canaan.

Joshua set up twelve stones for a memorial unto Israel for So "the twelve," of Jesus were to be witnesses for God,

ever.

to all generations.

What ailedst thee, O sea, that thou fleddest? Jordan, that thou wast driven back, and Jericho that thy walls fell, and thy goodly fabrics were shattered? What ailedst thee, O idolatry, that thou fleddest? O infidelity that thou was driven back? O Babylon, mother of harlots, drunk with the blood of the saints, that thou wast thrown down, and found no more at all?—Rev. G. Rogers.

PRAYER.

PRAYER lifts us above the world. This is the force of our Saviour's exultation; "Now I am no more in the world"— "I come to Thee”—and if with God, we are far enough from

it; for what communion hath light with darkness, or Christ with Belial? Triumphant himself, the Saviour is concerned for those who are still militant, enduring a great fight of afflictions, and distressed on every side, but that which looks heavenward.

“I will, that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am." What a beautiful comment is this on the text—“ Charity never faileth!" Caught up himself into the third heavens, his heart's desire and prayer is for the church on earth. Prophecies fail, tongues cease, wisdom vanishes away, but this principle follows us to the very throne of grace.

“All things work together for good." The people of God, whilst they deplored their scattered condition under the persecution of Saul, went in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ, into regions which might otherwise have remained in darkness. And when Herod, proceeding from one step of wickedness to another, cast Peter into prison, it was mainly to teach, by his glorious release, in answer to the supplications of the church, this truth, which Christians have in all ages been too ready to question,-" The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."

THE ANCIENTS NOT MATERIALISTS.

The Egyptians believed the nature of God to be purely spiritual, for according to Diodorus, their two great divinities were Jupiter and Vulcan. By the first of these names they designated ETHER or Spirit, and by the other FIRE. The first is called "the father and king of gods and men," by Homer: and the second is placed by Diodorus in the first class of gods, which seems, indeed, to have comprised only these two, who were believed to contribute to the production and perfecting of all things. The three other elements (for the Egyptians reckoned five), were also deified, but were considered to possess no native or underived energies like the other two. They were rather the recipients of a divine influence, than the active dispensers of it. The EARTH received the name of mother; the WATERS that of nurse; and the AIR was regarded as the daughter of Jupiter, who had emanated from his brain.