that this would give him a chance to win as much as he had taken from his master, and so he could put it back before it was missed. He played and lost, and played and lost again. And now, the money he had borrowed to play with must be paid, besides what he had taken from the drawer.

He then gave himself up to sin. He went again to his master's drawer to take what he wanted. It was missed; but nobody suspected him. He saw that if he should be found out it would ruin him; and he resolved to try once more to recover it by gaming.

He rose one night, opened the shop, and took two hundred dollars from the drawer, and then went to a gaming-house, full of hope that he should win all he wanted, and then he would never get into such difficulty again. He played one game after another till he lost the whole.

He

The morning came, and Montgomery was almost distracted. Mr. Markley did not happen to go to the drawer, but told Montgomery to take the money in it, and carry it to a certain bank. He knew if he should tell Mr. Markley that the money was gone, it would lead to inquiry, and he should be found out. He knew, too, that his master had a large sum of money in another bank. So he committed the dreadful crime of forgery! made what is called a cheque, or a written order, for two hundred dollars; signed Mr. Markley's name to it; and presented it at the bank! The officers of the bank saw that some person had written Mr. Markley's name there without his knowledge. Montgomery was detected, and confessed the whole affair. He said, if he had got the money on the forged cheque, he meant to have put it in the drawer, and so to conceal his course of crime as long as he could. How he felt, and how

his kind father and mother felt when they heard of the disgrace and ruin which had come upon their dear son, I need not tell you. He was tried for his crime, and found guilty, and was sent to prison for ten years!

Poor fellow! I saw him once afterwards. The tears were in his eyes. He then took hold of my hand very earnestly, and said, "I am going to the prison for a single glass of wine."

And it was truly so. The first step in the path to disgrace and ruin was taken when he drew the glass of wine from his master's cask; and so fast did the habit of sin grow upon him, that the boy who at fifteen years old was the joy and blessing of his parents, and the favourite of all who knew him, before he was eighteen was on his way to prison, for falsehood, theft, and forgery! Be careful, then, young reader, how you take the first wrong step.

It is often said by parents and teachers that great crimes are never committed at once. The child begins by doing wrong in little things. He disobeys his parents; then he deceives them; then he stays away from school, or loiters along the road; then he breaks the Sabbath; this brings him into bad company, and keeps him away from instruction and restraint; then he begins to drink and play cards; and he ends his days as a thief, a robber, or a murderer.

It is with the habit of sinning as with all other habits. They grow upon us by little and little; so oaks and elms, which begin in a little shoot, smaller than a finger, grow, from summer to summer, till they become great trees and overshadow the fields; and great cities, with all their churches and warehouses, were at first only a few scattered houses and half a dozen families.

THE mouth of the whale offers an instance of ingenuity and foresight. Comparing it to human inventions, it is a shrimping net; while no one could have divined that the largest animal of creation should have been commanded to seek its food among the smallest; that millions should be daily destroyed to support one life. So, however, has it been ordered. But had the whale been condemned to swallow all the water which it must draw into its mouth together with its prey, the inconveniences which would have followed are obvious. To prevent this it is provided with a singular piece of machinery, consisting of a series of flat hoops, meeting from both sides of the mouth into arches, and carrying ranges of bristles, which form a strainer, and also a kind of net. The water is thus rejected, and the mass of shrimps is delivered to the throat.-Maculloch.

POPERY AN OBSTACLE TO JEWISH BELIEF THAT JESUS IS THE MESSIAH.

THE Jews publicly opposed the use of images in religious worship, in the Talmud of 1576, in which they call the Christian churches "houses of idolatry." It is to be lamented that the bowing to images, and the worship to the Virgin Mary and the saints, should to this day be a stumblingblock to the Jews, and give them a handle against Christianity.

The Jewish Council held October 22, 1650, is a lamentable instance of the truth of this. The Council met in the plain of Ageda, thirty leagues from Buda, in Hungary, to search the Scriptures concerning the Messiah, whether He was already come, and who he was. Several argued the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah, from His miracles, their own unparalleled desolation and captivity since His crucifixion, and the Lord's not answering their prayers as formerly.

After seven days' debate, the Romish deputies were called in, viz., two Jesuits, two Franciscans, and two Augustine friars, to inquire of them if Jesus be the Messiah, what rules and orders He had left His followers to walk by? The Popish champions being admitted, forgot the cause of Christ (in their care for their Church), and spake not a word either for Him or His cause, but began to solicit them to become proselytes to the holy Catholic Church (as they called that of Rome), whose rules and governments, they said, are the only institutions of Christ, whose vicar the Pope is. They asserted transubstantiation, invocation of saints, and in particular the worship of the Virgin Mary, the adoration of the cross, &c. As soon as the Jews heard these things, the assembly

broke up in great tumult, crying out, “No Christ!" "No woman God!" "No images!” Many rent their clothes, and cried, "Blasphemy! blasphemy!"

Many Christians were present, and among them Mr. Samuel Bret, an Englishman, who reported that some rabbis, fearing that the Romanists would spoil all, desired that some_Protestant divines might be present. But the Emperor so ordered the matter with the Pope, that no Protestants were suffered to be called in. So they chose rather to harden these miserable souls in their unbelief and prejudice against Christ, than suffer them to turn Protestant believers of the New Testament.

A story worthy to be written in all the languages of the world, to the eternal infamy of the Papists and their cause.-Life of Mr. Jessey, pp. 81, 82.

ARTIFICIAL RELIGION.

WHEN Archdeacon Hare first visited Rome, some of his Protestant friends, it is said, who knew his love of art and the personal sympathy which he had with the Eternal City, trembled for the effect it might produce upon his mind. These fears were groundless. Rome was all and more than all he had imagined. But the splendid vision left him a stronger Protestant than it found him. "I saw the pope," he used to say, "apparently kneeling in prayer for mankind; but the legs that kneeled were artificial; he was in his chair." Was not that sight enough to counteract all the æsthetical impressions of the worship, if they had been a hundred times stronger than they were?