THE FIRESIDE.

re-established the monarchy under Louis XVIII. 1815, after the battle of Waterloo, the Allied troops again captured the city, and occupied it for three years.

A GOOD ANSWER.-Archbishop Leighton, one day returning from Church, saw a funeral coming. On reaching home one who had been confined to the house inquired, "Well, have you heard a good sermon ?" "I have met a good sermon," was the reply.

THE VERY LIFE OF RELIGION doth much depend upon the solemn observance of the Sabbath; consider, if we should intermit the keeping of it one year, what a height of profaneness would ensue in those that fear not God!-Archbishop Leighton.

The Fireside.

NEVER TOO LATE.

How often do we see men around us who, having been discouraged by financial reverses, are broken in spirit, and declare that it is no use to make any further efforts-that fortune is against them! How often do we meet people addicted to bad habits who affirm that they are too old to break them off, that after so many years of indulgence it would be impossible to give up this or that pleasure! How often do we encounter individuals who earnestly desire this or that accomplishment, but who argue that they are too far along in years to acquire it! If they were only a little younger they would lay hold and master it. And yet all history affords illustrations of the old adage that "it is never too late to mend." It is never too late to make a beginning. Smiles tells us that Sir Henry Spelman did not begin the study of science until he was between fifty and sixty years of age. Franklin was fifty before he fully entered upon the study of natural philosophy. Dryden and Scott were not known as authors until each was in his fortieth year. Boccacio was thirty-five when he commenced his literary career. Alfieri was forty-six when he began the study of Greek. Dr. Arnold learned German at an advanced age for the purpose of reading Neibuhr in the original, and in like manner James Watt, when about forty, while working at his trade as instrument maker in Glasgow, learned French, German, and Italian, to enable him to peruse the valuable works on mechanical philosophy which existed in those languages. Thomas Scott was fifty-six before he began to learn Hebrew. Robert Hall was once found lying upon the floor racked by pain, learning Italian in his old age to enable him to judge of the parallel drawn by Macaulay between Milton and Dante. Handel was forty-eight before he published any of his great works. Indeed, hundreds of instances

THE PENNY POST BOX.

might be given of men who struck out in an entirely different path, and successfully entered on new studies at a comparatively advanced time of life.

The Penny Post Box.

NOBLE ANSWERS.

"You ask," said the famous William, Prince of Orange, to Sonoy, the governor, "if I have entered into a treaty, or made a contract for assistance with the cause of the oppressed Christians in the provinces. I had entered into a close alliance with the King of kings; and I am firmly convinced that all who put their trust in Him will be saved by His almighty hand."

Afterwards, when offered every personal and family favour if he would but give over his life-long endeavours to secure religious freedom to the poor Netherlanders, the brave prince replied, "He regarded the welfare and security of the public before his own, having already placed his particular interests under his foot, and was still resolved to, so long as life should endure."

Geleyn de Mater, a schoolmaster, being found addicted to reading his Bible, was accused of heresy. Summoned before the Inquisitor, he was commanded to make instant recantation. "Do you not love your wife and children ?" "God knows," answered Geleyn of Audenarde, "that if the whole world were of gold, and my own, I would give it all only to have them with me, even had I to live on bread and water, and be in bondage." "You have them, said the Inquisitor, only renounce the error of your opinions.' "Neither for wife, children, nor all the world, can I renounce my God and religious truth.' upon he was strangled and thrown into the flames.

66

There

"Do you believe in Christ ?" said an infidel to John Jay. “I do, and I thank God that I do," was the statesman's noble reply. Two years before his death, when eighty-two years of age, he was struck down by disease and his recovery despaired of. When urged to tell his children on what foundation he rested his hopes, and from what source he drew his consolation, his brief reply was, “They have the Book."

A king and some noblemen were once going out for an early morning's ride. Waiting a few moment's for Lord Dartmouth, one of the party rebuked him for his tardiness. "I have learned to wait upon the King of kings before I wait upon my earthly sovereign," was his calm reply.

A pilgrim to Mecca once complained to the caliph Omar, because he had received a severe injury from the hand of Jaballah, king of Gassan. "But I am a king," replied Jaballah, proudly, " and he is but a peasant." "Ye are both Moslems," answered the fearless Omar, "and in the sight of God, who is no respecter of persons, ye are equal."

FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY.

Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry.

POETIC SELECTIONS.-THE CHILDREN'S CORNER.

Poetic Selections.

GOOD FROM EVIL.

Joy ripens where the days make night
With bitterest draughts of sorrow;
Hope leaps to meet the dancing light
That ushers in the morrow.

Come on, then, toil, and fear, and pain,
That bar the golden portal;
Through suffering garner we the grain-
Through death become immortal.

LITTLE DEEDS.

Through clouds, and tears, and angry fears, ONE little word, though uttered low,

Dead hopes and fruit untasted,
The resurrected spring appears,
Unheralded, unhasted.

We gather flowers too soon to reap
The harvest's glad fruition;

We blight the fairest hope, then weep
To find it but a vision.

And yet the rainbow's silver sheen
Is born of many a sorrow,

And fields that glow in living green
Are slumbering on the morrow.

Each star that's lost, and dream that cost
Such anguish in its going,

But build a bridge of gold across
The river's sullen flowing.

These dark, lone days are God's good ways,
Revealing sunny places;
Life's dying years have many tears,
Yet cloud they angel faces.

In accents calm, and soft, and mild,
May see the heart of man aglow,

Or gain the friendship of a child.

One little word, though uttered low,

In accents proud, and harsh, and cold,
May fill the heart of man with woe,

Repel the young, or wound the old.
One little look, if kind and true,
Attended by the pleasant word,
May speak more loud than tongue can do-
"Tis not the voice, the smile is heard.

One little look,-ah, who can tell

The pain and grief one look has spoken?-
May pierce the heart that loved you well;-
A pang, a sigh,-that heart is broken.
Then let us guard our every thought,
Yea, every thought and every deed;
For, Pity's lesson once forgot,

Some loving heart is sure to bleed.

The Children's Corner.

A LITTLE BOY'S LOVE FOR HIS MOTHER. SOME time since, some gentlemen passing through a village in Dumbartonshire, in Scotland, about nine o'clock at night, had their attention directed to a dark object in the church-yard. Upon approaching, they found a little boy, lying on his face, sound asleep on a newly-made grave. After waking him up and questioning him, they found that he was afraid to go home, because his sister, with whom he lived, had threatened to beat him. "And I just came," sobbed the poor little fellow, "because my mother's grave was here." Yearning for that love which nothing on earth could supply, and perhaps feeling as though it might protect him still, as it never had failed to do, he had sought refuge and cried himself to sleep upon his mother's grave. That was the highest conception he had of trust and love, that he had found to shield him and protect him when that mother was living; and he felt that even now it might, as it were, reach down from the region to which it had gone, and protect him still.

ADVENTURES OF A BALLOON.

SINCE the marvellous balloon adventure narrated by Edgar Allan Poe, there has been no such voyage through the air as that taken by two Parisians a short time ago. They did not, indeed, enjoy the celestial revelations, nor accomplish the astronomical feats described by the most imaginative of Americans, for these two aeronauts were enveloped in thick fog during the greater part of their journey. They were not kept in constant alarm by the fear of running against a planet, or of falling down a lunar mountain crater; on the contrary, the vision of a star would have been hailed with gladness in that long, dreary night of thick darkness and cloud. It was not in the heavens above nor in the earth beneath that their peril lay. Their fear was that they would be whelmed in the waters under the earth. A quarter of an hour before midnight of Nov. 24, this wonderful journey began. At that moment MM. Paul Rolier and Deschamps stepped into the balloon that was to carry them out of beleagured Paris. Whither, they knew not; their destination depended upon wind and weather, and such contingencies impossible to arrange for or foresee. They wished to go to Tours, for they had with them many bags of letters from anxious friends to still more anxious friends, many important despatches from the one half of the government to the other half, whose safe delivery involved, perhaps, the fate of the great sortie then at hand. But the wind bloweth where it listeth. In Paris the vanes pointed to the north, and the north wind would take them whither they desired to go. The balloon, released from its trammels, shot aloft more than a mile high, in order that it might escape the unfriendly salutes of the needle-gun. In that high region the travellers found the wind blowing in the opposite direction. They saw the whole Prussian camp beneath them at a safe distance, but as they sped over the heads of the foe, it was not towards the Loire that they took their way. These were departments of the north over which they were hurried. Then they seemed to hear the sound of innumerable locomotives rattling through some deep cutting. They were beyond the region of railways; the distant roar arose from the waves as they dashed against the rocks of the sea coast. There was no means of arresting their flight. In a few minutes they lost sight of the breakers beneath them, for they were whirled into a