HEALTH OF MILL OPERATIVES. their window the little factory-girl passes to enjoy her one holiday, and sings as she goes,― "The year's at the spring; the day's at the morn; Oh! that cheerful, child-like trust, which believes that all is right with the world because God is in heaven; which believes that whatever storms shake earth or heaven, the everlasting piliars are not shaken. Is it not sublime? HEALTH OF MILL OPERATIVES. As an impression prevails to the effect that cotton and woollen manufacture is injurious to the health of the working people engaged in it, we append some estimates obtained upon this subject in Lawrence, Mass. The labour of the operatives is ten hours per day; their ages are all over fifteen years, and the majority over twenty. The estimate is carefully made from about three thousand eight hundred persons, the sexes nearly equal in number, there being a slight preponderance of males. The cases of sickness occurred during one year, and were in all about seventy-four to the thousand. As to occupation, the average shows that the sickness among those engaged in manufacturing wearing fabrics of cotton and wool, who are principally women and girls, is about fifty-seven to one thousand; those engaged in bleaching, dying, and finishing, sixty-three to one thousand; cotton to be woven, ninety; and wool to be woven, ninety-seven to one thousand. As to disease, about three to one thousand had rheumatism; four, disease of the circulation ; nearly six required rest to recuperate; about seven classed as accidents; eight, diseases of the digestive organs; twelve of the lungs, &c, and twenty-nine, febrile diseases. These facts speak well for our ventilation, although the atmosphere of some rooms is of necessity filled with dust, fibres of cotton or wool, stean, or perhaps the vapours produced by chemicals employed. There are some rooms where the workmen are constantly wet while at work, and others where the temperature ranges from seventy-five deg. to one hundred deg. Fahrenheit. The general results, compared with similar estimates abroad, and with the general health of the community at home, indicate that employment in these mills is not usually unfavourable to health. Only seventeen out of 3,800 died. POETRY.-ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. Poetry. HE LEADS US ON. He leads us on, By paths we did not know; Upward He leads us, though our steps be slow, We know He leads us on. He leads us on Through all the unquiet years; Past all our dream-land hopes and doubts and fears We know His will is done; And still He leads us on. And He, at last, After the weary strife, After the restless fever we call life,— After the dreariness, the aching pain, The many struggles which have proved in vain,— After our toils are past, Will give us rest at last. Anecdotes and Selections. "It "APPOINTED TO ME."-A voice from the sick room says: helped me immensely last night, in my pain, to remember the text, 'Wearisome nights are appointed unto me.' The idea that they were no accident, but appointed by my best Friend,—this was strength to me. When all were sleeping, and His eyes saw my weariness, then I was sure that, for infinitely wise and kind reasons, all was arranged and prepared for me. This stilled my soul. This is our life lesson. Property takes wings-friends fail us-good schemes miscarry-plans of usefulness are thwarted by most unlooked for interventions-health gives way-action gives place to suffering. Where we were cheerily going, we can only wait God's will. Darkness and doubt shut us in. For many days neither sun nor stars appear. But all is well; these ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. things are appointed unto us. Only let us believe this-let a calm faith recognize the gracious Providence which shapes all our ways, and we can then endure until the dawn shall bring light and joy." A GOOD HEART.-There was a great Master among the Jews, who bid his scholars consider and tell him what was the best way wherein a man should always keep. One came and said there was nothing better than a good eye, which is, in their language, a liberal and contented disposition. Another said a good companion is the best thing in the world. A third said a good neighbour was the best thing he could desire; and a fourth preferred a man that could foresee things to come-that is, a wise person. But, at last, came in one Eleazar, and he said a good heart was better than them all. True," said the master; "thou hast comprehended in two words all that the rest have said; for he that hath a good heart will be both contented, and a good companion, and a good neighbour, and easily see what is fit to be done by him." Let every man then seriously labour to find in himself a sincerity and uprightness of heart at all times, and that will save him abundance of other labour. 66 THE PROOF.-Some years ago a Frenchman, who, like many of his countrymen, had won a high rank among men of science, yet denied the God who is the author of all science, was crossing the Great Sahara in company with an Arab guide. He noticed with a sneer that at certain times his guide, whatever obstacles might arise, put them all aside, and, kneeling on the burning sand, called on his God. Day after day passed, and the Arab never failed; till at last, one evening, the philosopher, when he arose from his knees, asked him, with a contemptuous smile, "How do you know there is a God?" The guide fixed his burning eye on the scoffer for a moment in wonder, and then said solemnly, "How do I know there is a God? How did I know that a man and a camel passed my hut last night in the darkness? Was it not by the print of his foot in the sand? Even so," and he pointed to the sun, whose last rays were fading over the lonely desert, "that footprint is not of man." THE VALUABLE LEGACY.-Well cultivated intellects; hearts sensible to domestic affection; the love of parents, and brothers, and sisters; a taste for home pleasures; habits of order, and regularity, and industry; hatred of vice and vicious men; and a lively sensibility to the excellence of virtue-are a more valuable legacy than an inheritance of property-simple property purchased by the loss of every habit which could render that property a blessing. OUR BREAD.-A curious discovery has just been made at Pompeii' In a house in course of excavation, an oven was found closed with an iron door, on opening which a batch of eighty-one loaves, put in nearly 1800 years ago, now somewhat overbaked, was discovered; and even the large iron shovel with which they were neatly laid in rows. The ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. loaves were but slightly overbaked by the lava heat, having been protected by a quantity of ashes covering the door. There is no baker's mark on the loaves; they are circular, about nine inches in diameter, rather flat, and indented (evidently with the baker's elbow) in the centre, and are slightly raised at the sides, and divided by deep lines, radiating from the centre into eight segments. They are now of a deep brown colour, and hard, but very light. In the same shop were found 561 bronze and 52 silver coins. A mill with a great quantity of corn in excellent preservation has also been discovered. BE EFFICIENT.-Whatever you try to do in life, try with all your heart to do it well; whatever you devote yourself to, devote yourself to completely; in great aims and small, be thoroughly in earnest. Never believe it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hardworking qualities, and hope to gain in the end. There is no such thing as fulfilment on the earth. Some happy talent and some fortunate opportunity may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere earnestness. Never put one hand to anything on which you can throw your whole self; never affect depreciation of your work, whatever it is. These you will find to be golden rules. SEEING GOD.-Let the majestic serenity with which you estimate the great and the small, prove that you refer everything to the Immutable-that you perceive the Godhead alike in everything; let the bright cheerfulness with which you encounter every proof of our transitory nature reveal to all men that you live above time and above the world; let your easy and graceful self-denial prove how many of the bonds of egotism you have already broken; and let the ever quick and open spirit from which neither what is rarest nor most ordinary escapes, show with what unwearied ardour you seek for every trace of the Godhead, with what eagerness you watch for its slightest manifestation. If your whole life, and every movement of your outward and inward being, is thus guided by religion, perhaps the hearts of many will be touched by this mute language, and will open to the reception of that spirit which dwells within you. HONORARY MEMBERS.-An editor having stated that he never knew a person to be an honorary member of a church, one of his correspondents replies:-"Two-thirds of the members of my church are honorary members. They don't come to prayer-meetings. They don't attend Sunday school. They don't add to the life of the church. They are honorary members. They are passengers in the gospel ship. They bear no burdens, add no strength. We have their names. You must have been a fortunate man never to have been in a church where there were no honorary members." THE FIRESIDE.-THE PENNY POST BOX. The Penny Post Box. WARNING TO YOUNG MEN. CHARLES LAMB told his sad experience as a warning to young men, in the following language:-"The waters have run over me, but out of the black depth, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth to whom the flavour of the first wines is as delicious as the opening scenes of life or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand how drear it is when he shall feel himself going down a precipice, with open eyes and a passive will to his destruction, and have no human power to stop it, and yet feel it all emanating from himself; to see all godliness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a time when it was otherwise; to bear the piteous spectacle of his own ruin; could he see my fevered eye, fevered with the last night's drinking, and feverishly looking for to-night's repeating the folly; could he but feel the body out of which I cry hourly with feebler outcry to be delivered, it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth, in all the pride of its mantling temptation." The Fireside. APOSTOLIC PRACTICE. PAUL did not simply pray that somebody might bring him a cloak to keep him warm the ensuing winter, but he wrote to Timothy to bring the one he had left at Troas with Carpus. When he thought of the poor saints at Jerusalem, he doubtless prayed very earnestly that the Lord would supply their wants. But he did not sit still at Ephesus, praying and doing nothing. He worked hard to get up a collection, among all the churches within reach. He gave command for a regular systematic contribution in Galatia and Corinth. He sent an agent to Corinth, once and again, and laboured himself as a collector in Macedonia. His second epistle to the Corinthians contained so much of earnest pleading for the collection, that we may be very sure some of the grumblers at Corinth said it was "entirely too much about money." That contribution would relieve the needy, would benefit the givers, would help to prevent the threatening schism between Gentile and Jewish churches. So the Apostle strained every nerve to make it general and liberal; and the inspired word of God contains one of the most impassioned appeals for money ever written. |