TRACTS ON CONTENTMENT.

MADAM,

A PAPER was inserted in the Christian Lady's Magazine for last month, calling upon Christian men and women to write a series of cheap tracts, in good native Saxon, setting forth the blessings of contentment, the privileges of Englishmen, the peculiar blessings of the English poor compared with those on the continent, &c.

Lest you should suppose from the remarks I am about to make, that I too am tainted with the "infidelity and disaffection" of the age, I beg to assure you that the glowing desire of my soul, is the happiness of my fellow creatures, and that having outlived names, I should welcome a despotism if I were assured it would conduce to that desirable end. I have however, no faith in man-the inward cry of my soul is," Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, and reign over the works of thine hands," for the people are unfaithful; they cannot be trusted with thy power, there is no help for man in man.

Your correspondent wishes tracts to be distributed among the labouring population, on the blessings of contentment: taking contentment in the sense of the opposite of ambition-the comparative repose of the soul in things which surround it, instead of the restless desire of others, is no doubt a blessed feeling,

approved of God. But, when society is heaving with its ambitious projects, and the feverish desire of amassing wealth has poisoned the very springs of social life, when much-vaunted capital has bonded itself together to drive into withering poverty the small farmer, and the little tradesman; when in short, the perfection of selfishness has almost reared its fearful top-stone, the perfection of misery, separating family from family, and man from man: why is then contentment to be preached only to the 'last term,’ the poor, those upon whom the evils of ambition and avarice have laid their iron grasp. The time was when in truth and kindness, the doctrine of contentment might have been preached to the poor, when every able-bodied labourer could obtain employment, and the produce of that employment be enough to provide his family with sufficient food, shelter, and raiment; but whatever may be the causes, it is not Let us not then insult them in their misery, by entering their cheerless abodes, and while they are looking to us for the deep sympathy of the soul, and the relief of their wants, thrust into their hands a tract, bidding them be contented, for it is the will of God.

so now.

The will of God! Do we take them for fools? They look at the waving fields, and well-stored grannaries, and they learn the will of God there; they look at the over-filled warehouses, and they learn the will of God there; they read man's curse, and they learn the will of God there; and above all, they read the record of the only nation in whose affairs, God ever visibly interfered, and they find the great aim of His government was to prevent families being made poor-but being made poor they should find

a supply in the fields, and the vineyards of the rich: and they learn the will of God there.

Let tracts then, be written on contentment, let the landowner be told to be contented with his delightful country residence, to seek his enjoyment in the tranquil objects which surround him, in banishing want and wretchedness from his estates, rather than in the guilty, but fascinating allurements of a London life.

Let the merchants and manufacturers be told to be contented with a moderate income, to seek their enjoyment in the happiness of their dependants, and not upon laying house to house, and field to field, until they stand alone in the midst of the earth; for verily, woe has been pronounced upon such.

Let the wealthy tradesman be told, to be contented with one place of business, and not to monopolize the bread of five or six families.

Especially let a tract be written on the duty of treating with proper respect man as man, according to the apostolic injunction, "Honor all men;" for there are hundreds whose minds are agitated by ambitious projects, in endeavouring to force their way to a higher station, who would willingly bear the physical evils which belong to poverty, but cannot endure the contempt with which it is treated.

When these classes do their duty, and have learned to be contented with that state of life unto which it hath pleased God to call them, then will charity be again confined to its legitimate objects, the idiotic, the maimed, the aged, the sick, the widow, and the fatherless, and then may we, with something like truth and justice, enter the cottages of the labouring poor, and say to the ambitious spirits among them:

Be contented with your lot; it has many blessings, you would not be happier, though you should climb to the top of the ladder; but if you do not believe it is the duty of society to repress your ambitious stirrings, its peace cannot be disturbed to give you knowledge.

us,

I am, Madam,

Your's respectfully,

A constant reader of your Valuable Magazine.

[We do not know how the foregoing most admirable letter came to be put aside so long. It ought to have appeared some time since. We read it with feelings of something more than acquiescence. Our deepest convictions go along with every word; and ardently do we desire that sentiments at once so Scriptural and so truly English, may assert their place in the bosoms of our countrymen, where they seem to have been too generally stifled, if not expelled.--ED.]

EXPOSITORY REMARKS ON GENESIS.

CHAPTER I.

VERSE 1.—" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." It would seem at first sight, and upon a superficial view of the matter, that of all imaginable statements the one in our text would most immediately commend itself to the acceptance of man's reason, and that, however reluctantly the natural man might admit the truth of other scripture propositions, to this at least he would readily accede; but this is far from being the case, the principle of atheism being deeply rooted in the apostate human heart, which has become callous to the love of God, at enmity with Him, and unwilling to acknowledge His divine being and His glory, eminently as they are both displayed in the works of His creation. "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy-work, there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard;" but yet, the fool still says in his heart "There is no God," he still refuses to acknowledge a divine Creator. And who is "the fool" in whose heart this impious language may be heard? The term cannot be restricted to the man of shallow comprehension and weak understanding, to the man of defective intellect, whose natural powers do not enable him to draw rational conclusions from self-evident propositions. Far from it;