Such, however, is unquestionably the evil of the existing mode of communicating our charities as it were by proxy; it is done at the sacrifice of the indescribable satisfaction of being, where opportunities offer, the personal almoners of our gifts the improving sentiments which this more unassuming practice induces, and the fearful amount of wretchedness necessarily left unalleviated by the public engines of charity. Is it not a fact, that in the midst of all the gorgeous blaze of benevolence indicated by those institutions, that the poor and destitute remain, to a great extent, the objects of supercilious indifference-that every thing bearing the semblance of misfortune is despised and avoided? But wherefore is all this? Is indigence a curse which effaces from its subject the character of man-the title of Christian, and the impress of the Divinity? Is misfortune a pestilence which smites with its plague all who venture within its vicinity? Is the abode of wretchedness a charnel-house, whose very aspect is ominous of death? After the few unfortunates provided

for by public contributions are put out of sight, and hid in their various asylums, what is to be done with the rest? Are they to be banished? Alas, they are so in too many cases!they alight on few eyes but what are turned from beholding them,-they approach few doors but those which are barred against them, few hands but those which are extended to rebut them.

And have we any warrant, on the part of our common Creator, for the manifestation of such conduct?-does the Divine Founder of our holy religion give countenance to such inhuman indifference to the wants and the cares of our fellows? Let those who derive their name from him-who pretend to be his followers, read the history of his benevo lent career on earth, and the precepts which he has enjoined as to the love of our neighbour-let them examine, in ever so superficial a manner, the very nature of the religion they profess, and say, whether in this conduct they act upon its holy principles.

Whatever may be vaunted of orthodoxy,whatever may be said about faith-and how

ever proper it may be to insist upon its necessity, true it is, that faith-faith without works of charity is emphatically dead. Its profession may give an individual the likeness to a Christian, such as a corpse possesses to a man, but it is otherwise as little profitable to society, and as little capable of receiving or communicating good.

Benevolence is a living-an indispensable attribute of Christianity. It agrees, with infinite propriety, to the language in which it was first announced:-" Glory to God: peace on earth, and good will to man." The motto, this, of that pure and gracious system of truth, entitled Christianity,-a motto which bespeaks it an emanation of the holy atmosphere of paradise-a beam of infinite benevolence, enlightening and enlivening the chaotic abyss of human woe.

To the day-spring of the gospel alone does it belong, to bear upon its benignant zephyrs the beneficence of heaven;-and to those happy souls alone to whom its lucid dawn has arisen with healing on its wings, does it appertain to partake of the celestial charities

dispensed to earth's meek aspirants of im mortal bliss. Whenever this heavenly radiance shall be universally hailed,-whenever the blessings of its light shall be attended by a recognition of the inherent genius of the gospel-by a renovating influence upon the temper and habits, and accompanied by a Christ-like exhibition of its beneficent fruits in the conduct:-when Christians shall religiously act under the potent influence of that stream of charity which the Redeemer hath opened up on Calvary, every man will then find in his neighbour a friend and a brother-the poor enjoy a treasury in the coffers of the rich, and the unfortunate a heart of sympathy, and a hand of succour in the resources of the more happy and prosperous ;- private benevolence will not be sacrificed to public and extended works of charity, but all will harmonize and render the favoured Isles of Britain a garden of the Lord, and the hearts of his devoted people temples resplendent with his holy presence.

MICHAEL BRUCE,

THE POET OF LOCHLEVEN.

BY RICHARD HUIE, M. D.

CIRCUMSTANCES having induced me, in the month of September last, to pay a visit to the neighbourhood of Kinross, I stepped into a bookseller's shop in that town for the pur-`` pose of inquiring if he possessed a copy of the poems of Michael Bruce, the poet of Lochleven. Having received an answer in the negative, I naturally asked if the memory of the poet had ceased to be an object of interest in the vicinity. He assured me that