dering it soon heated and slowly cooled; and as the men were cooped up in their head-pieces and breast-plates, they could no way get free from this burning oil; they could only leap and roll about in their pains, as they fell down from the bridges they had laid. And as they were thus beaten back, and retired to their own party, who still pressed them forward, they were easily wounded by those that were behind them." The place, however, was finally taken, and the inhabitants for the most part cruelly destroyed. Thus, in ancient as well as modern times, man has been the destroyer of his fellowman. When will the happy period arrive that the nations will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks!

"Put thou my tears into thy bottle."-Psalm lvi. 8.

In the Roman tombs are found small bottles (usually called lachrymatories) of glass or pottery, but most commonly glass, and of various forms, but generally with long narrow necks. These are commonly supposed to have contained tears shed by surviving friends of the deceased, and to have been deposited in the sepulchres as memorials of affection and distress. We might very well suppose that the present text alludes to such a custom; and it would therefore imply that it existed very anciently in the East, and particularly among the Hebrews.

There are still some traces of such a usage in the East. Thus, in the annual lamentations of the Persians for the slaughtered sons of Ali, their tears are copiously excited by passionate discourses and tragical recitations. When at the

height of their grief, a priest sometimes goes round to each person and collects the tears with a piece of cotton, from which he presses them into a bottle, preserving them with the greatest care. This seems a striking illustration of the present text, which takes its allusion from one person putting the tears of another into a bottle. If this be allowed, the meaning will be, Let my distress, and the tears I shed in consequence of it, be ever before thee, excite thy kind remembrance of me, and plead with thee to grant me the relief I stand in need of.

MISCELLANEA.

JUVENILE MISSIONARY MEETINGS.

BRUNSWICK CHAPEL, LONDON.

mission, on condition that every other Sunday-school in the Connexion raise an equal amount.”

ON Lord's-day afternoon, Feb. of making themselves responsible 20th, we held our third annual for raising the sum of £1 extra Juvenile Missionary Meeting.as their quota for the Australian After singing and prayer, our esteemed and valued minister, the Rev. James Maughan, was called upon to take the chair. Suitable addresses were then delivered by Messrs. Alfred Howard, Henry Bean, Joseph B. Cooke, W. James, William Benson, and James Ward.

The meeting was an interesting one, and it is believed has had and will have a salutary effect on the minds of many. The finances of this society are much improved, and it is hoped that next year we

During the meeting, it was re- may have to report a large insolved that the following propo-crease in the collections and consition be made to all the schools tributions of our scholars to this in the Connexion: "That having noble object. seen, in the JUVENILE INSTRUCTOR and Magazines, a loud call to the duty of sending a missionary to Australia, and the practibility of raising the necessary funds for that object by the combined exertions of the Sunday-scholars, 3, Albany Crescent,

The collection was £1 1s. 9d., and which, added to the amount collected by the scholars, makes the sum of £6 1s. 9d. for the year. JOSEPH COOKE,

Secretary.

the scholars of this school beg to

lay before the Connexion the offer

Albany-road, London.

further addressed by the Rev. J. Hillock and Messrs. Marriot, Bibb, and Lawson; after which a col-ports with great delight. Go on,

Let us

dear young friends. You are doing | Will the challenge of the London God's work, and he will bless you scholars be accepted? and make you a blessing. Query. know.-ED.]

SELECT VARIETIES.

SAGACITY OF THE HOUSE SPARROW.

which was laid an iron bar, extending within a foot of the surface. The mother was at the top, looking down with pity and alarm at the awkward position of this, perhaps, her only child; many and ingenious were the attempts on the part both of parent and offspring for the regaining of the latter's lost position; each and all proved unavailing. I looked on with a degree of pleasurable excitement, mixed with fear and anxiety, lest the drama should be incomplete by the flying away of the mother and the desertion of the child. But no; nature's ways on these points are perfect and all-sufficient, as this case most beautifully proves; for although each new proposal seemed to be blasted in the carrying out, at length the intelligent creature, after considering for a moment, flies away, returns with a stout straw in its beak, and rests for a few seconds on the edge. Then conceive my delight, when the little nestling, after a chirp or

1

THIS well-known bird is com- | down this same dungeon, across mon throughout Europe, the islands of the Mediterranean, in the north of Africa, in Asia also, in the Himalayan district, and in various other parts. Everywhere he is the same, except, indeed, in appearance; for how unlike is the smoke-begrimed sparrow of the town to the handsomely-plumaged one of the country! Everywhere he makes himself at home. "The cloud-capped towers," and the Poor-law union-house, the lowly thatched cottage, and the splendid gothic mansion-nay, the very palace of the Queen of England herself-one and all bear testimony to the universality of the sparrow, and the self-accomodating nature of his visitations. The following pleasing instance of both instinct and affection is mentioned by Mr. Cordeaux :"Living in the city portion of the great metropolis of London, I observed one afternoon, in the aperture generally left for the cellar, or kitchen window when underground, an unfledged house-sparrow, unable to fly to any distance, two from its mother, learning no which had unfortunately fallen | doubt the particulars of the pro- |

OUR CHILDREN'S PORTION.

PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE.

heart, and keep him from taking his holy name in vain. "Why do you swear, my son ?" said the father. The child sobbed out, One" Because I have such a wicked heart." After receiving sundry advices, he was told to do nothing he did not see his father do; and this led the father to think, "Is all that I do worthy of being