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ABOUT VISITING.

child of eleven years. Isabella II., the Spanish queen, "still lives," but she does not reign, being an exile. Mr. Van Buren, who was President of America in 1837, has been dead for some years. If we look at the great changes that have taken place since Victoria became queen, we cannot fail to be struck by their number; for they include the overthrow of the Papal temporal power, the conversion of Italy from a number of small countries and foreign dependencies into a united kingdom, the loss of the European leadership by Russia, the destruction of the Germanic Confederation, the defeat of Austria by Prussia, the overthrow of three branches of the House of Bourbon, the restoration of the Bonapartes in France, the creation of two French Republics, the conquest of France by the Germans, the fall of Napoleon III., the re-creation of the German Empire under the House of Hohenzollern, the setting up of a new dynasty in Spain, the disestablishment of the Irish Church, the second British Reform Bill, the Sepoy mutiny, the opening of China and Japan to western intercourse and influences, the gold discoveries of California and Australia, the establishment of ocean steam navigation, the creation of the electric telegraph, the conquest of Mexico by the United States, the secession war, and the abolition of American slavery and the overthrow of American slaveocratic rule, and many other strange events. Perhaps not the least remarkable of these changes is that which placed Victoria herself on the Mussulman throne of Akbar and Aurungzebe.

ABOUT VISITING.

THE French gentry are adopting the plan of inviting guests by series to their chateaux; and each invitation sets forth the exact length of time the guest is expected to stay, as well as the day he is to come. Not a bad plan either. A family may be very glad to see a friend on a given day, and to entertain that friend for a given time; and yet it might be very annoying and inconvenient to have that visitor at another time, or to have his visit prolonged. It is the unexpectedness and length of visits which vex and fret families more than anything else. The ease with which people can now get about is producing such a rage for visiting that hospitable families are really in danger of being worn out, and rendered utterly wretched, if not actually impoverished, by the swarms of friends who find it convenient and pleasant to make these hospi

POETRY.

table houses their temporary homes, while engaged in their own business or pleasure. No considerate, well-bred persons will ever presume to make a friend's house a stopping-place, even for a day, without having first ascertained whether such a course would be convenient and agreeable to that friend; and should never overstay the time designated except on the most urgent invitation.

Poetry.

DAY-BREAK.

WE are waiting for the clouds to break,
We are watching for the dawn;
For the first faint flush of the rosy light,
For the first soft flood of the sunbeams bright,
For the sweet long-tarrying morn.

There are shadows now on heath and hill,
And the drifting clouds look grey;
And the stars still linger, and still the gleam
Of the moonlight silvers the meadow stream,
As it glides along its way.

There will soon be slender lines of gold
In the dim, dark eastern sky;

And above the mountain a crimson streak,
And a purple tint on each pine-crowned peak,
That will bid the night-gloom fly.

Then the moon's fair rays will all grow pale,
And the star-gleams fade away;

And the cold, calm heavens be blue and bright,
And the clouds be crested and fringed with light-
With the tender light of day.

And the stream will shine among the reeds,

And the lilies by the lake

Will unfold their buds, while the wood-birds sing

Till the copse, and forest, and valleys ring,
And the mountain-echoes wake.

There is nothing half so fair on earth
As the first bright blush of dawn,

When the shadows die in a flood of light,
And the clouds and darkness are put to flight
By the sunbeam-hosts of morn.

But the glory soon grows faint and dim,
And the crimson flushes fade;

And we turn away from the east, and sigh
For a perfect dawn that will never die,
For a day that hath no shade.

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

Anecdotes and Selections.

ARE YOU CHRIST'S?-The Apostle closes a burning climax with the exalting word, "For ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Are you Christ's? Many talk about Him, but it is only talk. Who feels that He is? What is such a feeling? That of entire dispossession by yourself. All unrenewed people have a fancy that they are their own. They can do what they will with themselves. They can employ their affections, their time, their money, their brains, on what they please. If they owe allegiance to any person, it is to those of their own household, or to human beings to whom they are indebted, not to Christ. They may have a blind thought of something due to God, but only in the sense of not violating any voice of conscience in themselves—that is, of not opposing their better self. Any thought of personal allegiance to Christ, they do not entertain. Any affection for Him, any solicitation of His guidance, any conference with Him as to the direction of their affairs, or the bestowment of their means, or time, or words, they do not for a moment entertain. They write books about Him, and never ask Him to help them in the composition. They prepare sermons, even on Him, and never implore His aid in the preparation. They rush into business without any consciousness that all their success must come from Him. They engage in their professions and pleasures, unmindful of Him by whom are all things, and for whom are all things. Be ye not like unto them. Do not disregard Christ. Ye are Christ's. Do you show it by frequent interviews with Him? You consult your partner-consult this Chief Partner. You even ask information of your clerks, workmen, servants; how much more of your Lord and Master. You seek wisdom of the thermometer and barometer; how much more of Him who maketh winds and weather. You ask advice of your wife how to spend your gains; how much more of Him who alone has given you anything to spend! "Ye are Christ's" implies complete absorption in Him. He is all in all. He is your breath, your thought, your love, your wisdom, your business, your pleasure, your alter Ego, your other and greater self. You think His thoughts, feel His feelings, live His life. You are not your own. You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. So live, so love. Then will you have perpetual peace and power; then will nothing trouble you above your ability to easily bear; then will you go forward cheerfully on the path of life, absorbing to yourself all that is good, repelling all that is bad, serene of soul, dwelling in the heavens. All are yours, because ye are Christ's and Christ is God's. Here and hereafter, life and death, time and eternity, finite and infinity, creature and Creator, man, angel, devil even, to conquer, heaven to dwell in, hell to subdue and shun, all are yours, for "Ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's!"

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

HALF-BELIEVING.-Had Christians been believing in God better, more grandly, the present phase of unbelief-which no doubt is needful, and must appear some time in the world's history-would not have appeared in our day. No doubt it has come when it must, and will vanish when it must; but those who do believe are more to blame for it, I think, than those who do not believe. The common kind of belief in God is rationally untenable. Half to an insensate nature, half to a living God, is a worship that cannot stand. God is all in all, or no God at all. The man who goes to church every Sunday, and yet trembles before chance, is a Christian only because Christ has claimed him-is not a Christian as having believed in Him. I would not be hard. There are so many degrees in faith. A man may be on the right_track, may be learning of Christ, and be very poor and weak. But I say there is no standing room, no reality of reason, between absolute faith and absolute unbelief. Either not a sparrow falls to the ground without him, or there is no God, and we are fatherless children. Those who attempt to live in such a limbo as lies between the two are only driven of the wind and tossed.-McDonald's Miracles of our Lord. THE DAY OF REST.-I think with a shudder sometimes of what life would be without Sunday-if day after day the great wheel of the world went round with its ceaseless clatter, never a rest in motion, never a pause in sound. I speak of the Sabbath only in its original meaning, as a word that signifies rest. And in this sense it is by most men, and ought to be by all, esteemed as the very greatest of all blessings which Almighty benevolence has bestowed on man. The worst Sabbath-breaker of all is the ingrate who is not thankful when the Sabbath comes round. He may go to church three times a day, and be austere in all outward observance, but he breaks the Sabbath in his heart if he rejoices when it is over. There are many kinds of worship, and I am humbly disposed to think that the giving of thanks is not the least acceptable of them. If it be true that laborare est orare, we are praying during six days of the week, and may devote the seventh to praise. He who thoroughly enjoys his day of rest lives from morning till night in a state of thankfulness to the Almighty; the incense of praise is continually rising from his heart. I do not envy the man who does not hail the advent of Sunday, and rejoice in the rest which it vouchsafes.

HOW LONG?"How long does it take to be converted?" said a young man to his father.-"How long," asked his father, "does it take the judge to discharge the prisoner when the jury have brought him in 'Not guilty'?"-"Only a minute."- "When a sinner is convinced that he is a sinner, and is sorry for it; when he desires forgiveness and deliverance from sin, and believes that Christ is able and willing to save him, he can be converted as speedily as the prisoner can be discharged by the judge. It does not take God a long time to discharge a penitent soul from the condemnation and power of sin."

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.-THE FIRESIDE.

LANGUAGE OF THE GYPSIES.-The vulgar idea has long been that the gypsies were nothing more than the gathering up of the nomadic rogues and tramps of the countries wherein they were to be found, and that their language was little more than a mere thieves' slang. But the more learned in matters ethnological maintain that their physical features and peculiarities alone sufficiently answer the first taunt; and that, as regards the second, the folk speech of the gypsies is really a language. One enthusiastic German doctor says: "This national language does not originate either in the Egyptian or any other tongue, but solely in the idioms of Northern Hindustan; and thus, though never so much adulterated, it stands in affinity with—of all tongues the most perfect in combination and structure-the proud Sanscrit; and, however modestly, may glory in the parentage." It has been often asserted that Indian officers have been able to understand the gypsy language, simply from their knowledge of Hindustanee; and it is a curious fact that if some of the gypsy words in George Borrow's interesting story of " Lavengro are taken and compared with the Hindustan, they are found to correspond almost exactly-as, for instance, the words signifying snake, man, knife, woman.-Once a Week.

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PROVIDENTIAL CARE.-Who is it that waters fields of corn upon the Sabbath morning as upon the Saturday night? Who is it that makes the grass to grow in Sabbath sunshine as well as amid Saturday's rains? Who is it that hears the cry of the raven on Sunday morning and feeds it? Who is it that keeps up the pulsations of the heart, from which if God were to withdraw his finger for a moment each heart would be still, and life would instantly depart? In our hospital wards and sick rooms; in the broken limb where the bone is gradually united; in the severed muscle where amediatorial substance is put forth that rejoins it; in the health that returns to the withered frame;-in all these our Father worketh, hitherto, on Saturday, and Sunday, and on all days.-Cumming.

The Fireside.

SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS.

THE first reliable facts, based on the most thorough investigations, as to the influence of schools on the eye-sight, were published in 1866, by Dr. Herman Cohn, of Breslau, Prussia. He has examined five village schools in Langebielan (a village of Silesia), and the following schools in the city of Breslau: twenty elementary schools, two higher girls' schools, two intermediate schools, two real schools (non-classical colleges), and two gymnastic (classical colleges). Of the 10,060 scholars in these institutions, 17.1 per cent. were not in the full normal posses

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