Two specimens on the same subject.

The two following are upon the same subject, but the writers were 17 and 11 years of age. They are accordingly very different in their style and character.

BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.

"The king of Babylon, named Belshazzar, made a great feast for all his lords, his wives, and concubines. And he sent and took from the house of the Lord the golden and silver vessels, and he and his company drank wine out of them. While they were enjoying in impious mirth the feast, the fingers of a man's hand were seen on the plastering of the wall, over against the candlestick. Then was the king very much frightened, and his knees smote against each other. He sent for all the wise men in the kingdom to read the writing, but they could not. Then he called aloud again, If any man can read it he shall be clothed in scarlet, and have a chain of gold around his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. Then came in his wife the queen, to tell him that there was a man who could interpret dreams, whose name was Daniel. He read the writing. MeneGod hath finished thy kingdom. Tekel-Thou art weighed, and art found wanting.

"Pere-Thy kingdom is given to the Medes and Persians. Then was a proclamation made that he was the third ruler in the kingdom. "And the same night the king died."

STORY OF BELSHAZZAR.

"It was night; but the usual stillness of that hour was broken by the sounds of feasting and revelry. It had been a festival day in Babylon, and the inhabitants had not yet sunk into repose. The song and the dance still continued, and the voice of music was heard. All seemed in perfect security, and no precautions had been taken to avoid the danger which hung over their devoted heads. An invading army was, even then, surrounding the walls of the city; but those who ought to have defended it, confident and secure, left it unguarded and ex posed to the attacks of the enemy. Fear was excluded even from the walls of the palace, and the monarch was giving his own example of rioting and mirth to his subjects. A thousand of the noblest lords in his kingdom were feasting with him, as his invited guests. They had already "tarried long at the wine," when Belshazzar, in the pride and impiety of his heart, commanded his servants to bring the silver and golden vessels which had been taken by his grandfather Nebuchad

Questions.

nezzar from the temple at Jerusalem. They were brought and filled with wine; and as they drank it, they extolled their gods of wood and of stone.

"But while they were thus sacrilegiously employed, their mirth was suddenly changed into amazement and consternation. A hand like that of a man was seen to write upon the wall of the palace, and as they gazed upon it, it traced the sentence, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." No one among that vast company understood its meaning, but to their affrighted imagination it was full of portentous import. The king, who was exceedingly terrified, sent in haste for all the astrologers, and those persons in whose powers of divination he had been accustomed to place confidence; but none could explain the mysterious warning. At this juncture the queen entered, and informed the king that Daniel was in the city, and that he was supposed to possess the wisdom of the Gods. He was hastily summoned into the royal presence, and after reproving the trembling and condemned monarch for the pride of heart which he had manifested, revealed to him the doom which was pronounced upon him. He told him that his kingdom and his own life were nearly at a close; that his empire should be divided between the Medes and Persians and also that his own character had been examined, and found lamentably deficient. "The reward which had been promised was now bestowed upon Daniel. He was arrayed in a kingly robe, adorned with a golden chain, and proclaimed the third in authority in the kingdom. Ere the next rising sun Belshazzar was numbered with the dead."

QUESTIONS.

At what time and under what circumstances had the golden and sil ver vessels been taken from the temple at Jerusalem ?

In what language was the writing upon the wall; and why could no one of the wise men of Babylon interpret it?

Why were the Chaldeans included among the astrologers and soothsayers?

The original writing was, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin ;" why, in the interpretation, is Peres substituted for Upharsin?

It is a very good plan to write questions at the close of such an exercise as in the last specimen, bringing up difficulties which have occurred to the writer while reading and writing the account. These questions can be subsequently proposed to some person qualified to an

4. Collating the Scriptures.

Plan tried by James and John.

swer them. The whole plan may be adopted more or less extensively, according to the time and taste of the individual. I knew a young man who re-wrote the whole book of the Acts in this way. The result he preserved in a neat manuscript, and the effort undoubtedly impressed the facts on his memory with a distinctness which remained for years.

4. Collating the Scriptures. The next method I shall describe, by which variety and efficiency can be given to your study of the Scriptures, may be called collation. It consists of carefully comparing two or more different accounts of the same transaction.

To illustrate it, I will imagine that two young persons sit down on a Sabbath afternoon by their fireside to read the Bible, and they conclude to collate the several accounts of Paul's conversion. To show that this exercise does not require any advanced age, or maturity of mind, I will imagine that the scholars are quite young, and will give in detail the conversation, as we might imagine it in such a case to be. We will suppose James to be thirteen or fourteen years of age, and John some years younger.

John. "Well, what shall we read?"

James. "I think it would be a good plan for us to read and compare the two accounts of the conversion of Paul. Here is the first account in the ninth chapter of the Acts, and I believe he afterward gave some account of it himself in his speech."

John. "What speech?"

James. "Some speech he made at his trial. I will try to find it; it is somewhere in the last part of the book of Acts."

The boys turn over the leaves of their Bibles, until at last James says,

"Here it is; I have found it; it is in the 26th chapter."

Three accounts of Paul's conversion.

"No," says John, "it is in the 22d; it begins at the 4th verse."

James. "Let me see it. O, there are two accounts in his speeches; that makes three in all. Would you compare them all?”

John. "Yes; we can put our fingers into all the places, and read one verse of one, and then one verse of another, and so go through."

James. "Well, let us see where these two speeches were made."

The boys then examine the introductory remarks connected with these two addresses of the Apostle, and learn before whom and under what circumstances they were made, and then proceed with their comparison.

James. "I will read first in the ninth chapter."

1. "And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest.

2. "And desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem."

"Now you may read as much," he continues, “in the 22d chapter."

John. "Where shall I begin?"

James. (Looking at the passage), " At the 5th verse, I believe."

John. (Reading.) 5. “As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders; from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished."

"Do you see any difference, James?"

James. " Yes; there are two differences: it says in the first account that he took letters from the high priest alone; and in the second, from the elders too

Effect of this method.

all the estate of the elders. It says too, in the first account, that his letters were to the synagogues, but in the second, that they were to the brethren."

Boys of twelve years of age would probably see no farther than to notice such obvious points of comparison as those I have mentioned; but a maturer mind, attempting this same exercise, would go far deeper, and consequently with a stronger interest, into the subject. Such an one will take great pleasure in observing how every expression in the account in the 22d chapter corresponds with the circumstances in which Paul was placed. He was in Jerusalem. A great popular tumult had been excited against him. A few of his determined enemies had, by the arts with which it is always easy for bad men to inflame the multitude, urged them on almost to fury, and an immense throng had gathered around him, with the marks of the most determined hostility in their looks and gestures and actions. At this moment a Roman military force appeared for his rescue; he was drawn out from the crowd, and standing upon the stairs of the castle, above the tumultuous sea from which he had been saved, he attempts to address the assembly.

He had been represented to the crowd as a foreigneran Egyptian, who had come to Jerusalem to excite sedition and tumult; and of course his first aim would naturally be to destroy this impression, and present himself before this assembly as their fellow countryman—one who had long resided among them, and had regarded them as brethren. How natural is it therefore that he should speak so distinctly of his connection with the Jewish nation! He commences his account with the statement that he is a Jew-by birth, by education, and by feelings. This peculiarity in the speaker's condition accounts most fully and in a most interesting manner for the difference between the expressions which he uses here, and those used in the 9th chapter. Where, in the