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they attain certain statea ages, when partners in life | take a moderate estimate, and suppose that the young die, when old age comes on, for funeral expenses, and support for necessitous relations-all come within the limits of Benefit Societies; and it is possible that allowances at marriage might be a very useful regulation. That is of so much consideration, indeed, that it deserves to be treated a little at length.

In order to confine the objects of Benefit Societies to those contemplated by the Acts of Parliament that have from time to time been passed for their protection, namely those that can be averaged so as to adjust the payments fairly to the benefits, the legislature, by the 10 Geo. 4. c. 56. § 4, has directed the rules to be certified by a barrister; and in the case of a society formed after the 19th of June, 1829, it requires that the Justices at Sessions shall be satisfied with the correctness of the tables of contributions, and benefits. But it must not be supposed that the provisions of any statute are intended to limit the usefulness of the societies; for the object and tendency are quite the reverse. The statute is framed for the benevolent purpose of preventing the members of such societies from wasting their contributions upon improper objects. Loss by fire, being out of employment, aud being in prison for debt, are grounds of relief in some of those societies which have been institued without reference to the statute. Now, as not one of these must happen to any one man, no certain average of them can be taken; and, as they may happen through negligent or improper conduct, as well as through unforeseen accidents, relief in cases of them, provided in a formal manner, has very much the appearance of a bounty on inattention and idle

ness.

The real cases are proper subjects for charity. That a Benefit Society has "worked well" in one place, is an argument in favour of its plan; but it is not a complete argument: for, on a subject of so much intricacy, there may be important elements left out; and times, places, and occupations, vary very much, both in respect of the contingencies of life, and of the periods of life at which they happen. Those who have capacity and inclination for such enquiries, and time to pursue them, cannot bestow more valuable aid upon their more occupied brethren, than by furnishing them with such information as that in question. If the informed part of society would, upon occasion, lend judiciously a little of their knowledge to the unlearned, they would do much more real good than by giving their money.

Our next paper will contain some notice of the leading principles of Probability, so far as they are necessary for the establishing of Benefit Societies, and capable of explanation without language not in common use; and in order that the list may be the more complete, a few words shall now be added on marriage portions.

We shall, for the sake of brevity, suppose that, upon the average, youths begin to earn wages at eighteen, and girls at fifteen,-from which they could bear to spare a part, after the reasonable supply of their common wants. If that is denied, their marriage must bring misery; the children must go to the workhouse, or do worse; and the condition of society is incurable. But that should not be, and it is not :ten in the dozen, even in the most unfortunate parts of England, are above that-all might be so.

Well, suppose that they can (and where there is a can, it is the business of instruction to find a will) begin to save a little at the ages that have been mentioned; and that young men, on the average, marry at twenty-eight, and young women at twenty-two. Thirty and twenty-five would be better; but there is some danger of bad habits being formed. We shall

man could “put by "six-pence a-week, and the young woman three-pence; or the one twenty-six, and the other thirteen shillings in the year. eighteen to twenty-eight is ten years, which, without any allowance of interest, is thirteen pounds to the man; and from fifteen to twenty-two is seven years, which is four pounds eleven shillings to the woman; put the two together, and there is seventeen pounds eleven shillings to furnish the cuttage, besides the interest, which would provide a wedding dress for each. The whole chattels of an English cottager, in the districts round London, (and these should not be worse than the average of the country) do not at present amount to three pounds, and often not to one pound. The marriage provision would therefore be a most valuable use of Benefit Societies; and if it were general, it would save many of the other uses, as well as prevent many things that are objectionable. Still, as marriage is not one of those cases that come within the meaning of the Act of Parliament, it is probable that some specific establishments for marriage portions would be better than uniting them with the relief of the necessitous.

A MOTHER TEACHING HER CHILD TO PRAY.

KNEEL, my child, thy God is here!
Kneel in love and filial fear;

Love Him,-for His Grace He shows thee,
Fear Him, for He made and knows thee.
Thou art His, through Christ His Son,
Saved by grace, by mercy won ·
Lost to everlasting joy;

But my Saviour sought and found thee,
And His blessings now surround thee:
Praise Him for His constant care,
Pray to Him,-He heedeth pray'r

ONE of the deaf and dumb lads in the Institution at Paris being desired to express his idea of the eternity of the Deity, replied: "It is duration without beginning or end; existence without bounds or dimensions; present without past or future; his eternity is youth without infancy or old age; life without birth or death; to-day without yesterday or to morrow."

WE make laws, but we follow customs.-LADY M. W. MON-
TAGUE.

I WILL to-morrow, that I will,
I will be sure to do it;
To-morrow comes, to-morrow goes,
And still thou art to do it.
Thus still repentance is deferred,
From one day to another:
Until the day of death is come.
And judgment is the other.

DREXELIUS on Eternity.

FAITH.

To our own safety, our own sedulity is required. And then blessed for ever be that mother's child, whose faith hath made him the child of God. The earth may shake, the pillars of the world may tremble under us; the countenance of the heaven may be appalled, the sun may lose his light, the moon her beauty, the stars their glory; but concerning the man that trusteth in God, if the fire have proclaimed itself unable so much as to singe a hair of his head; if lions, beasts ravenous by nature and keen with hunger, being set to devour, have, as it were, religiously adored the very flesh of the faithful man; what is there in the world that shall change his heart, overthrow his faith, alter his affection towards God, or the affection of God to him? If I be of this note, who shall make a separation between me and my God.--HOOKER.

DIAZOMA MEDITERRANEA.

THIS curious little animal, or rather group of animals, for each of the projecting parts of the figure contains an inhabitant occupying a portion of the common dwelling, yet still depending on its own exertions for its individual support, was taken by M. Savigny near the island of Ivica, in the Mediterranean. It is found attached to rocks beneath the surface of the sea. It never moves from the spot on which it is produced, -but there it flourishes and decays.

Violet Diazoma

Nothing more nearly resembles a Polypus than the ommon body in which the animal of the DIAZOMA is contained. This body is formed of cells, and spread out like a saucer-of a firm, jelly-like substance, transparent, and of a light violet colour, which is deeper at the extremity of the cells. These cells are disposed in several concentric circles, containing the animals, of a grey ash colour, which are visible through the skin that incloses them. The cells are large, projecting, flattened, and inclined in a direction from the centre to the circumference; the various circular rows appear each to form a distinct group. Each cell has two tube-shaped pores of a purple colour, marked with six grooves, from which, when the creature expands itself, six lance-shaped feelers proceed; the largest and most projecting tube corresponds with the mouth, and is farthest from the centre.

The description of animals to which this is allied are called radiated, from the parts of which they are composed, arising from a common centre, and spreading out in a circular form like the rays of the sun. When in a state of rest, not the least appearance of life is visible, and they appear like unformed lumps of animal substance; but when left undisturbed and excited by hunger, their numerous arms are spread in search of food: and we observe instead of the slimy mass we threw down in disgust, the appearance of a group of flowers in fu.l bloom.

The Sea Anemone, so common on our own coasts, is a beautiful specimen of an animal of this class. Persons, who some years back were lowered in a Diving Bell to inspect the wreck of the Royal George, that foundered at Portsmouth, were struck with astonishment at the appearance of its deck, which was covered with mud deposited from the sea, and become the abode of numerous groups of these creatures, who with their extended arms had converted the whole surface into the resemblance of an extensive and beautiful flower garden.

THE TWO ROSES.

BEING with my friend in a garden, we gathered each of us a rose. He handled his tenderly; smelt to it but seldom, and sparingly. I always kept mine to my nose, or squeezed it in my hand; whereby, in a very short time, it lost both its colour and sweetness: but his still remained as sweet and fragrant as if it had been growing upon its own root.

These roses, said I, are the true emblems of the best and sweetest creature-enjoyments in the world,-which, being moderately and cautiously used and enjoyed, may for a long time yield sweetness to the possessor of them: but, if once the affections seize too greedily upon them, and squeeze them too hard, they quickly wither in our hands, and we lose the comfort of them; and that, either through the soul surfeiting upon them, or the Lord's righteous and just removal of them, because of the excess of our affections to them.

It is a point of excellent wisdom, to keep the golden bridle of moderation upon all the affections we exercise on earthly things; and never to let slip the reins of the affections, unless they move towards God, in the love of whom there is no danger of excess.-FLAVEL.

Lines quoted in TAYLOR'S Holy Living and Dying, as being found on a tombstone in Feversham Church

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Whoso him bethoft,

Inwardly and oft,

How hard it were to flit
From bed into the pit.
From pit unto pain

That nere shall cease again,
The would not do one sin
all the world to win.

AN ALPHABETICAL ACCOUNT

An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,
Boldly by battery besieged Beigrade.
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Dealing destruction's devastating doom.
Every effort engineers essay,

For fame, for fortune fighting; furious fray.
Generals 'gainst generals grapple, gracious goou'
How honours heaven heroic hardihood!
Infuriate, indiscriminate in ill,

Kinsmen kill kindred, kindred kinsmen kill.
Labour low levels loftiest longest lines;

Men march 'midst moles, 'midst mounds, 'midst murderous mines.

Now noisy noxious numbers notice nought
Of outward obstacles opposing ought.
Poor patriots, partly purchased, partly pressed,
Quite quaking, quickly quarter quest.
Reason returns, religious right redounds:
Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds!
Truce to thee, Turkey! triumph to thy train,
Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine !
Vanish, vain victory, vanish victory vain,
Why wish we warfare? wherefore welcome were
Xerxes, Ximenes, Xanthus, Xavier ?

Yield, yield ye youths, ye yeomen, yield your yell
Zeno's, Zopater's, Zoroaster's zeal,
Attracting all, arts against arms appeal.

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UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION, APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

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THE PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT. THERE are few subjects which have occupied so much of antiquarian research as the Pyramids of Egypt, and few which have better deserved the zealous inquiry they have awakened. Whether the gigantic character of their outward form be considered, the singularity of their internal design, or the length of their duration, the mind derives a pleasing awe from the great associations with which they are connected. In surveying them, the genius of the past seems to be present, to commune with us, and to mingle us with the earliest offspring of mankind. Their unchanging and apparently indestructible forms have outlived successive generations, and endured amidst the ruins of Babylon and Rome, the ravages of Cambyses, and the conquests of Alexander.

These mysterious buildings are called the PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH, from a village of that name on the banks of the river Nile, from which they are distant about eleven miles, forming almost a line to the westward of the city of Cairo. The platform or high rocky ground on which they stand, rises out of a strip of sandy plain about thirty miles long, extending by the side of the Nile, and sloping upwards to about eighty feet above the level of the river. The two largest Pyramids are named after two kings, Cheops and Cephrenes, whose tombs they are supposed to be. The largest of the two-that of Cheops-may well have been considered as one of the Wonders of the World, the north side being 693 feet in length, and the whole building covering something more than eleven English acres-a size sufficiently monstrous to stagger belief, if the fact were not established beyond dispute. Pliny and Diodorus Siculus, two ancient historians, who wrote of these buildings since the Christian Æra, agree in stating that not less than 360.000 men were employed in erecting the Great Pyramid; and it is added that twenty years were expended in the work. It may be proper to remark, with regard to the size of the Pyramids, that engravings of them have rather tended to mislead; for as it is impossible to represent their real bulk on paper, drawings made to give an idea of their form, naturally tend to diminish the idea of their size, in the imagination of the observer.

similar structure; but the second temple, that of Cephrenes, is distinguished by having the SPHYNX ranged in front of the centre of its eastern face, bearing all the marks of having been connected with it by communications cut through the rock under ground. Between the paws of the Sphynx a perfect temple was discovered, a few years ago, by the intrepid traveller Belzoni, on clearing away the sand by which it had been choked up for ages.

The magnificent prospect from the top of this pyramid, has been described by the French traveller SAVARY, who visited Egypt in 1770, in glowing terms. After occupying seven hours in ascending to its summit, "the morning light," says he, "discovered to us every moment new beauties: the tops of gilded minarets, and of date tree and citron groves, planted round the villages and hills; anon the herds left the hamlets; the boats spread their light sails, and our eyes followed them along the vast windings of the Nile. On the north appeared sterile hills and barren sands; on the south the river and waving fields, vast as the ocean: to the west the plain of Fayum, famous for its roses to the east the picturesque town of Gizeh, and the towers of Fostat, the minarets of Cairo, and the castle of Saladdin, terminated the prospect. Seated on the most wonderful of the works of man, as upon a throne, our eyes beheld by turns a dreadful desert; rich plains in which the Elysian fields had been imagined; villages; a majestic river; and edifices which seemed the work of giants. The universe contains no landscape more variegated, more magnificent, or more awful."

The ancients knew little of the interior structure of these giant piles. Herodotus, who lived 445 years before Christ, merely speaks of an entrance leading to the interior, by hearsay from the priests, who informed him that there were secret vaults beneath, hewn out of the natural rock. Strabo, who lived after the Christian æra, only describes a single slanting passage which led to a chamber in which was a stone tomb. Diodorus Siculus, who lived forty-four years before Christ, agrees with this; and Pliny, who lived A.D. 66, adds that there was a well in the Great Pyramid, eighty cubits deep. This is all the ancients have said about the interior.

The Egyptian priests, indeed, assured Aristides, a The four sides of all pyramids, large and small, Greek traveller about two centuries before Christ, exactly face the cardinal points.

These Pyramids, with several smaller ones in a greater or less state of preservation, occupy the Plain of Gizeh. More to the south, within a limit of twenty or thirty miles, on the same western bank of the Nile, and at about the same distance from the bed of the river, there are other groupes, as at Saccara, Dashour, and Ramlie. Of these the first place is connected with Gizeh by a chain of sepulchres and ruined buildings; but there are numerous others, not so connected, in different places, even so far southward as Nubia.

The Third Pyramid of Gizeh is that of Mycerinus; it has three smaller pyramids ranged along its south face. The Great Pyramid has six, and three of a larger size, but much decayed on its eastern face. Besides these, an extensive region of tombs, arranged in streets crossing each other, and occupying the same shape and extent of ground as the base of the Pyramid of Cheops, are found along its western side.

The Second Pyramid has a line of chambers cut in the rock, and on its eastern side are the ruins of a temple. The third has a similar temple and avenue; and, indeed, the eastern face of the Great Pyramid bears traces, though more indistinct, of a

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that "the excavations beneath were as great as the height above." And Ebn Abd Alhokim, an Arabic writer of the ninth century says, that the builders I constructed numerous excavated chambers, with gates to them, forty cubits under ground." Other Arabian writers say that these chambers contain chests of black stone, in which were deposited the sacred archives of King Saurid, who built the pyramid. Many discoveries (perhaps a burial place under ground) obviously remain to be made.

The same Arab historian, Alkokim, gives an account of the opening of this building under the Caliphate, from which time it has remained in the condition seen and described by all modern travellers, to the time of the Italian traveller, Caviglia, who made a discovery of a new chamber and passages, about ten years ago. "After that Almamon the Caliph (A. D. 820,) entered Egypt, and saw the Pyramids, he desired to know what was within, and therefore would have them opened. He was told it could not possibly be done. He replied, I will have it certainly done. And that hole was opened for him, which stands open to this day, with fire and vinegar. Two smiths prepared and sharpened the iron and engines, which they forced in: and there was a great expence in the opening it; and the thick

ness of the wall was found to be twenty cubits. There have been many opinions expressed by Within they found a square well, and in the square learned men as to the object of these structures. of it, there were doors: every door of it opened into One is, that they were the granaries of Joseph. a house (or vault), in which there were dead bodies This may be confuted by the smallness of the rooms, wrapped up in linen. Towards the upper part of and the time required in building. Another, that the Pyramid, they found a chamber, in which was a they were observatories, which is accusing the hollow stone; in it was a statue of stone, like a man, builders of great absurdity, since the neighbouring and within it a man, upon whom was a breast-plate rocks were better calculated for the purpose. The of gold, set with jewels, and on him were written Arabians generally think that they were built by characters with a pen, which no man can explain." King Saurid, before the deluge, as a refuge for himGreaves, an Englishman, who visited the Great self, and the public records, from the Flood; but Pyramid in 1648, described the passages thus opened, this opinion requires no answer. Josephus, the and then open, very accurately, and suspected that Jewish historian, who wrote A. D. 71, ascribes them at the bottom of a well in the Pyramid, was the pas- to his countrymen, during the captivity in Egypt. sage to those secret vaults mentioned by Herodotus; As sun-dials, they would have failed. Shaw and but he made no new discovery. Davison, who visited Bryant, who wrote in the middle of the last cenit in the middle of the eighteenth century, discovered tury, believed them to be temples, and the stone some secret chambers and passages connecting the chest, a tank for holding water used for purification. largest gallery with the central room, and an apart- Pauw, who lived at the same time with Shaw and ment four feet high over it. He descended the well | Bryant, considers the Great Pyramid as the tomb of 155 feet, but found further progress blocked up. Osiris; and that Osiris having fourteen tombs for Caviglia was the first to discover the above suspected various parts of his dismembered body, fourteen passage. After much trouble in clearing the narrow pyramids must have been devoted to them, and opening at the end of the first or entrance gallery of the annual funeral mysteries connected with his the pyramid, he found that it did not terminate at death and resurrection. But the greater number that point, as hitherto supposed, but proceeded of writers, ancient and modern, believe it to be the downwards to the distance of 200 feet. It ended tomb of Cheops, the alleged builder. Improving on in a door-way on the right, which was found to this notion, Maillet 1760) supposed that the chamcommunicate with the bottom of the well. But bers were built for the purpose of shutting up the new passage did not terminate here: it went the friends of the deceased king with the dead beyond the door-way twenty-three feet, and then body; and that the holes on each side of the central took a horizontal direction for twenty-eight more, chamber of the Great Pyramid, were the means where it opened into a spacious chamber immediately by which they were to be supplied with food, &c.; under the central room. an opinion which would have appeared sufficiently ludicrous, if it had not been exceeded by that expressed by an old Moulah to Buonaparte, when in Egypt (1799), that the object was to keep the buried body undecayed, by closely sealing up all access to the outward air. Another ingenious theory ascribes them to the shepherd kings, a foreign pastoral nation which oppressed Egypt in the early times of the Pharaohs. However, this is, after all, but conjecture. The utmost uncertainty exists in all that concerns these gigantic, unwieldy, and mysterious buildings. Their builders, origin, date, and purposes, are entirely lost in the night of ages. the sides of all the pyramids face the cardinal points, and of course give the true meridian of the places where they are situated, it would seem that their builders had made some progress in scientific knowledge; and the buildings themselves, under all cir, cumstances, notwithstanding their plain exteriorclearly show the advanced state of art in those very early times.

This new chamber is twenty-seven feet broad, and sixty-six feet long. The floor is irregular; nearly one half of the length from the eastern, or entrance end, being level, and about fifteen feet from the ceiling; while, in the middle, it descends five feet lower, in which part there is a hollow space bearing all the appearance of the commencement of a well, or shaft. From thence it rises to the western end, so that there is scarcely room between the floor and the ceiling to stand upright."

On the south of this chamber is a passage hollowed out, just high and wide enough for a man to creep along upon his hands and knees, which continues in the rock for fifty-five feet, and then suddenly ends. Another at the east end commences with a kind of arch, and runs about forty feet into the solid body of the Pyramid.

Mr. Salt, the late intelligent British Consul to Egypt, was so struck by this discovery, as to express his belief that the under-ground rooms were used for "the performance of solemn and secret mysteries."

As to the Second Pyramid of Gizeh, the ancients knew less about it than they did of the first. Herodotus says it has no under-ground chambers, and the other ancient authorities are silent. But the enterprising Belzoni found its entrance, in the north front, in 1818, and discovered at the same time, that it had been previously forced open by the Arabian Caliph, Ali Mehemet, A. D. 782, more than a thou sand years before. After forcing an entrance, and advancing along a narrow passage, one hundred feet long, he found a central chamber, forty-six feet long by sixteen wide, and twenty-three high, cut out of the solid rock. It contained a granite sarcophagus, (a tomb) half sunk in the floor, with some bones in it, which, on inspection by Sir Everard Home, proved to be those of a cow. An Arabic inscription on the walls implies, that it had been opened in the presence of the Sultan Ali Mehemet.

THE BIBLE.

As

A single book has saved me; but that book is not of human origin. Long had I despised it; long had I deemed it a class book for the credulous and ignorant; until, having investigated the Gospel of Christ, with an ardent desire to ascertain its truth or falsity, its pages proffered to my inquiries the sublimest knowledge of man and nature, and the simplest, and at the same time, the most exalted system of moral ethics. Faith, hope, and charity were enkindled in my bosom; and every advancing step strengthened me in the conviction, that the morals of this book are as superior to human morals, as its oracles are superior to human opinions.-M. L. BAUTAIN, Professor of Philosophy, Strasburgh.

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