There is a canoe floating lazily on the waters of the St. Lawrence. All is bright on either side; and forests which nothing but the wild beast or the tempest has disturbed for centuries, wave in the plenitude of summer richness. In that canoe there is a boatman asleep, and the gentle gliding of his little craft is fitted rather to rock than to rouse him. Gradually, however, the river flows more rapidly. The boat, with its sleeping cargo, feels the suction, and now rushes with increasing velocity along. Its agitation at length rouses the sleeper, but it is too late. His skiff feels the resistless power of the current; and, amid wild gesticulations, he plunges into an abyss where his very fragments are destroyed. And similar results are seen in the moral world, when men permit themselves to be drawn within the suction of that current which is sweeping so many down to ruin for ever. SECULARISM. Were it needful further to enforce this subject, we might refer to the ever-varying forms of delusion which heady and selfish men often obtrude on the notice of their fellow-workmen. Even in the course of a single generation we may count scheme after scheme--Utopian reforms--charters--new distributions of property or power--all designed to enlist men's sympathies in favour of some dream-like project, only to plunge its abettors into a deeper abyss than before. The most recent of these assumes the name of /Secularism/. It has for its object the abolition of Christianity, and all that relates to the soul. One of its leading maxims is, "The precedence of the duties of this life over those pertaining to another world;" and, by the advocacy of such opinions, the system and its supporters adapt themselves to all that is low and grovelling in the fallen soul. They beguile the unwary, and make an easy conquest of those who have no religion but that of their country or their fathers. Or another dogma of the system is, that "the atonement of Christ is unsatisfactory as a scheme, and immoral as an example;" and by such tenets men would tear up the foundation on which the hopes of mortality repose: they proudly but blindly sport with their own ruin, and glory in lowering themselves to the level of the beasts which perish. THE HEAVENLY ANTIDOTE.