INFLUENCE OF HOME. To understand it, is to be wise indeed; to be ignorant of it, is to be destitute of true wisdom. It is the king's best copy, the magistrate's best rule, the housekeeper's best guide, the servant's best directory, and the young man's best companion; it is the school-boy's spelling-book, and the great and learned man's masterpiece. It contains a choice grammar for a novice, and a profound mystery for a sage. It is the ignorant man's dictionary, and the wise man's directory. It affords knowledge of witty inventions for the humorous, and dark sayings for the grave; it is also its own interpreter, and that which crowns all is, that the Author is without partiality and without hypocrisy, "With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." INFLUENCE OF HOME. In one of the rooms of a prison sat a pale faced girl mending stockings. By permission of the governess I was allowed to speak to her, and laid my hand on her head, saying— "How old are you my child?" "Fourteen years of age," was the reply. "And how is it you are here?" "A man stole a garment, and gave me twopence to take it to the pawn shop; and they say I stole it, but I did not.” "Did you go to the Sunday school?" Yes, sir. Do you think they will have me back at the Sunday school, after having been in the New Bailey, sir ?” "Yes, I do hope they will," I replied. "Have you any mother?" She burst out weeping, and said- "O, yes, sir; and she is poorly, and nearly blind, and I think my coming here will make her worse." "Where does your mother live ?" I asked. "In Byron Street; and oh! I wish you would go to see her, and tell her I am very well, and that I did not steal the coat. Do tell her I will be as happy as I can. If you will, oh! I will thank you, for it will do my mother good." Miss Ord and myself, in sadness, turned away from the sorrowing, imprisoned girl, promising to call on her mother. After a little trouble we found the street and the number. On entering the miserable looking house, I asked the woman if she was better. POETRY. 66 My eyes are a little better, but I am still very poorly," was her answer. "Where are your children?" I asked. "I have only two; one is out nursing, and the other,—oh, the other, I wish you had not asked me." "We have just seen her, and she wished us to tell you that she will be as happy as she can for your sake." "Seen her! Seen my poor imprisoned child! O! let me bless you. O! my dear, dear child. And how is she? Have you seen her in prison? O! bless you for coming to tell me." The girl is now liberated from gaol, restored to the Sunday school, and to her mother. But that mother, I have been recently informed, never attends a place of worship, and, I am pained to write it, is a drunken woman. Hearing this, I did not much wonder her child was in prison; the good influences of the Sunday school had not overcome the bad counteracting example at home. I wish they had, for Happy children Thrice happy ye, whose pious parents lead Of kindness and of love; do what you can To lure them back to those sweet paths, from which, Poetry. WE WANT OUR GOD. BENEATH a grand, celestial arch, With lights of radiant splendour hung, Reaches above a grey-white cloud, We want our God! POETRY.-ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. The mystic moon, seeress of night, As must the prophet through the lands- The stars are shimmering through the mist, A path of eastern light appears, And smiles and smiles all nature o'er- The morning song is led by birds; The flowers their incense sweetly give Ever and ever wondrous, rare- The air's oppressive way is dark Burst now the heavens with sudden shock, The vivid lightning flashes-hark! Is death above, our hopes to mock? The storm is o'er, the eve serene- The western gates of glory seen, Anecdotes and Selections. THE RIVER BRINGING LIFE.-" And everything shall live whither the river cometh." I have somewhere seen a picture which in brief words and from dim memories only, I will endeavour to describe. The scene is in the far East; the hour, just when the earth is lighted up with that rare Oriental sunrise which we Westerners love to see; the time, the sultry August, when the fierce sun has it all his own way, ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. and when the earth has a sickly cast upon it, as if it fainted almost beneath the intensity of the glare; the plain is scorched and arid; the river pressing within its sedgy banks seems to have hardly strength enough to propel its sluggish stream. There, on an eminence, beneath a group of ancestral palms, is a knot of Egyptians, swarthy and muscular, their eyes strained wildly toward the south, in which quarter there seems to be an indescribable baze, forecasting the shadow of some atmospheric or other change. Why wait they there so eagerly? Why is their gaze fastened distinctly upon the point where the river glimmers faintly on the horizon's dusky forehead? Because they are conscious, from the experience of years, that the time has come for the inundation of the Nile. They do not know how it will be swelled; they are not able to tell the source from which the tribute is distilled, how in the far Abyssinia it gathers its volume of waters; but as certainly as if their knowledge was profound and scientific, they calculate upon the coming flood. And they know, too, that when the flood does come, that arid plain shall wave with ripening grain; there shall be corn in Egypt, and those blackened pastures will be gay with such fertile plenty that the whole land shall eat and be satisfied, "for everything shall live whither the river cometh." So marvellous shall be the transformation that the Turkish description of the Egyptian climate shall almost hold good; that for three months it is white like pearl, for three months brown like musk, for three months green like emerald, for three months yellow like gold. This picture has struck me as furnishing us with a very graphic representation of Ezekiel's vision embodied in the experience of Eastern life. Nothing, certainly, can better image the moral barrenness of the world and the wilderness of sin than that plain upon which the consuming heat has alighted, withering the green herb and inducing the dread of famine. Nothing can better set forth the life and healing of the gospel of Christ than the flow of that blessed life-giving river; and nothing can better show the attitude befitting all Christian men than the attitude of these peasants, eager and earnest, watching the first murmurings of the quiescent waters that they might catch and spread the joy.-Punshon. THE MEASURELESS LOVE.-I can measure maternal love-how broad, how long, and how strong and deep it is; it is a deep sea which mothers only can fathom. But the love displayed on yonder hill and bloody cross, where God's own Son is perishing for us, nor man nor angel has a line to measure. The circumference of the earth, the altitude of the sun, the distance of the planets-these have been determined; but the height, depth, breadth, and length of the love of God passeth knowledge. Such is the Father against whom all of us have sinned a thousand times! Walk the shore where the ocean sleeps in the summer calm, or, lashed into fury by the winter's tempest, is thundering on her sands, and when you have numbered the drops of the waves, the sand on her sounding beach, you have numbered God's ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. mercies and your sins. Well, therefore, may we go to Him with the contrition of the prodigal in our hearts, and his confession on our lips"Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight." The Spirit of God helping us to go to God, be assured that the father, who, seeing his son afar off, ran to meet him, fell on his neck and kissed him, was but an image of Him who, not sparing His own Son, but giving Him up to death that we might live, invites and now awaits your coming. -Dr. Guthrie. FIRST GREEK TESTAMENT.-Perhaps it is not as generally known as it ought to be that the first Greek Testament ever printed was brought out in Spain under the superintendence of a Spanish cardinal. To Erasmus is due the credit of having succeeded in publishing the first Greek Testament (A.D. 1516); but Cardinal Ximines was in the field before Erasmus, and the New Testament, in magnificent Greek type, with thick black Latin type by its side, was printed and stored up in 1514, waiting for the completion of the Old Testament in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, so that the six volumes might come out together. John Brocas, the son of the printer, was accustomed to relate that when the last sheet came from the press, he, being then a boy, was sent in his best clothes, with a copy of it to the Cardinal, who gave thanks to God for sparing him to that day; and turning to his attendants, said that he congratulated himself on the completion of that work, more than on any of the acts of his administration. CHARITY.-The best charity is not that which giveth alms, whether secretly or with ostentation. The best charity—that which "worketh no evil"—is the charity that prompts us to think and speak well of our neighbours. Even if they be openly condemned, and that with warrant, it is a noble charity in us not to gall their wounds by multiplying knowledge of their offences. We are all ashamed to confess that our quickest instincts are to think ill of others, or to magnify the ill of which we hear. There is a universal shrugging of the shoulders, as much as to say, Well, I expected as much-It is just like him-I had my suspicions of her "I could a tale unfold," and thus on through an endless chapter, with which every reader will be somewhat familiar, from his or her own experience. SUNSHINE AND CLOUDS.—Ah, this beautiful world! I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all sunshine and gladness, and heaven itself lies not far off, and then it suddenly changes, and is dark and sorrowful, and the clouds shut out the day. In the lives of the saddest of us there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms. Then come gloomy hours, when the fire will not burn on our hearths, and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad.-Longfellow. |