another. With a large heart it set out upon its timehonored pilgrimage, and with a large heart it has reached its present crisis. It has known, as brethren and sisters all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, whilst it has sought by all lawful appliances, to win over those who were without that love, "if by any means it might

save some."

It has had, indeed, other and inferior motives. Believing that mental, no less than natural, light is sweet, its conductors have endeavored, as science opened up new discoveries, or enterprise introduced our age to “fresh fields and pastures new," to inform and elevate the youthful mind on subjects not intrinsically religious. Whatsoever things were honest, truthful, and improving, it has sought to lay hold of and place before the reader, with special reference to his progress in solid knowledge, and in the hope that the Spirit of all Truth would transmute into true wisdom the information thus treasured

up.

The first volume of our work lies now before us-"The Youths' Magazine, or Evangelical Miscellany, Vol. I. Commencing September, 1805." An allegory of Wisdom, "done," as Master Walton says, "in black and white,” forms the frontispiece; the paper is inferior, the type large, and the matter small in quantity, and in quality very different from that required by the Youth of our own age. Yet, when first ushered into the world, the Magazine enjoyed a popularity only acquired in the present day by clamorous and unceasing agitation from without. It had a wide field of its own, and to some extent, after a lapse of so many years, it finds it still unoccupied. Its future Editor is anxious, as were its first conductors, to introduce it to "the young people of respectable families, who are between the periods of childhood, and quite grown-up age." We trust he may find them sufficiently numerous to make his praiseworthy labors remunerative ; and bid him "God speed," so long as he knows no master

but our common Lord. We fear, however, they are now sparsely strewn, as gleaning grapes after the vintage; for though the field remains in all its original breadth, the spirit of the day has done much-if not to depopulate, at least to deprave the tastes that move it. The child, in these precocious days, leaps at once to would-be manhood, and ridicules those very teachings which would have proved too high for those who occupied his place a generation since. With all the boasted progress of our day, the young grow up too rankly, forgetting that a teachable and childlike spirit is the veriest nobility. They of Berea who stooped to learn, and learned by stooping, were more noble" than the loud and boastful men of Thessalonica, strong in their own conceit. We revel in the well-worn pages of our earlier volumes, so genial is the temper of their articles, so truthful and unpresuming is the spirit that breathes over them. It is a home-book for youth who lived at home. But where are they now-the teens of 1852 ? As regards the docile and domestic character which brought them within the scope of our teachings, dead and gone, like the Saurians and Pachydermata of past worlds.

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Yet we doubt not that the "Youths' Magazine" may create a class of readers for itself. We hope they may be of those who look for truth, and not for novelty-firm and earnest friends to true progress, fearing God and eschewing evil. We do not want, as many do, a growing Bible in this age of growths. It is so great and wise and full and good, as to meet all our need-and that is large enough. It is as much the Book for this day as for the days of the apostles-unsearchable in its depths, all-embracing in its sympathies-making the simple wise, and looking down sublimely on the loftiest intellects. Our

hearts have burned within us as we talked with it by the way, and we believe, and are sure, that it is indeed the Word of God. "Profane and vain babblings, and oppo

sitions of science, falsely so called," were never more rife than now, and we know of no antidote but the Scriptures, studied in the majesty of their own simplicity, and by the light of heart-felt prayer-that" candle of the Lord" which glorifies the closet of his saints. Cooled down by the godless transcendentalism of the age, and darkened by an evil heart, the Bible becomes a dead letter, and the soul is famished. Our youth are the trustees of the coming generation; let them keep that intact which is committed to them as their best treasure.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with them! Many are the happy memories connected with our past communion. We have loved them, have felt for them, and prayed on their behalf-and ours. For the remembrance of our responsibility has been sometimes weighty, especially when counsel has been asked confidingly, and in a spirit that found its echo in our own hearts. Our privilege has been no common lot-our office, one of thankfulness and joy. The grievances of authorship and literary labor, if such exist, have been unknown to us. Our course has known no shadow but such as was grateful-no heat, no drought, no trying vicissitudes. Courtesies innumerable from those whose views we were entrusted to expound, and kindnesses manifold from contributors and readers who were "unknown to us by face"-have gladdened a connection longer than that of any other Editor of this Miscellany, and we retire from our post without a thought of envy or unkindness.

Our friends of the Committee subjoin a word at parting, characteristically kind, and nobly catholic; and our own leave shall be taken in one word-" Good-bye!"

We love the fine old term, though clipped and garbled: it is so full, so hearty, so intelligible, "Farewell!" has a quaintness and affectation in it that little suits our taste, but "Good be with ye!" if God be the prime idea of that Good, is a blessing to which nothing can be added. Amen!

WISDOM FOR THE MILLION.

"THE testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple."-Sure in its effects, because independent of human acquirements, and dealing equally with the child-like and unsophisticated, as with the great or learned. The exact sciences are sure' in one sense-" rigid and infallible" in their rules and their conclusions; but they are sure in a way widely different from that implied in the text quoted. Not one in a hundred, perhaps not one in a thousand-can understand, even their simplest elements; to them therefore they are without effect-abstractedly but certainly not practicallysure. Many are the philosophical systems which are 'sure' in such a limited application of the term, but the Bible is pre-eminently so. It touches, transforms, and takes effect on all-never returning void, because it is just what human nature in all its breadth and variety requires.

I HAVE A RIGHT.

WE, as a nation, are remarkably fond of talking about our rights. The expression, "I have a right," is constantly in our mouths; this is one reason, among some others, why it is fortunate for us that we speak English, since this favorite phrase in more than one continental tongue has no precise equivalent.

Whether the nation's phrase grew out of the nation's character, or whether the happy possession of such a phrase has helped to mould that character, it is scarcely now worth while to enquire. Certain it is that those generations which make proverbs, make thereby laws which govern their children's children, and thus, perhaps, it comes to pass that this neat, independent, Anglo-Saxon phrase helps to get and keep for us the very rights it tells of. For as under some governments it is true that the dearest and most unalienable rights of the race go by the name of privilege, indulgence, or immunity, a concession, and not an inheritance; a gift, and not a birthrightwhile ancient rights in our sense of this word merge into mere privileges held at the ruler's will, and having been once called privileges, may be exchanged by him for other privileges, which may amount to no more than the sight of a glittering

show-so in our case it is true that privileges have a constant tendency to merge into rights. Let any man grant his neighbours the privilege of walking through his fields, his park, or his grounds, and then see how soon it will be said that they have a right to traverse them; and, in fact, very soon they will have a right by the law of the land; for to prove the right they need only show that they have enjoyed the privilege “ time out of mind." And then, again, Right is very unfair to his cousin Privilege, for by the laws of England sixty years constitute "time out of mind."

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By taking the trouble to investigate, any person may find many parallel cases, and so we keep the path of liberty. First, we got that path as a sort of privilege which was winked at; then we made out that we had a right to it; next we proved that it wanted widening, and then we paved it handsomely, made a king's highway of it, and took pains to have it constantly in repair.

Now, it being an acknowledged thing, my dear friends, that we have rights, and that we like to have these facts wellknown to all whom it may concern—how glad you will be if I can point out to you certain rights which some of you have scarcely considered at all. I have met with numbers of worshipful old gentlemen, industrious young workmen, and women of all degrees, who knew well how to use our favorite phrase in its common vulgar sense; but I knew a worshipful old baker, in an old country town, who used it oftener than any of them. To hear him hold forth about his rights, did one's heart good, and made one proud of one's country. Everybody else's rights appeared flat and tame compared with his, and the best of it was, that no one was ever heard to dispute them.

Dear old man, he is dead now, but some of his rights survive him. I was on my way home to the neighbourhood of that little country town wherein for so many years he might have been seen on a summer evening standing in his shop door, and exercising the rights he loved, when it so happened that I heard some of my countrymen also discoursing about their rights, and the more they talked, the more petty and insignificant seemed their rights compared with those of Mr. Bryce, the baker. We took our tickets at the London terminus of the Great