Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.-THE FIRESIDE.

66 WHAT HAS IT DONE FOR YOU?"

THE other day Mr. Bradlaugh was lecturing in a village in the north of England; and at the close he challenged discussion. Who should accept the challenge but an old, bent woman, in most antiquated attire, who went up to the lecturer and said: "Sir, I have a question to put to you."

[ocr errors]

66 Well, my good woman, what is it ?"

"Ten years ago," she said, "I was left a widow, with eight children utterly unprovided for, and nothing to call my own but this Bible. By its direction, and looking to God for strength, I have been enabled to feed myself and family. I am now tottering to the grave; but I am perfectly happy, because I look forward to a life of immortality with Jesus in heaven. That's what my religion has done for me. What has your way of thinking done for you?"

"Well, my good lady," rejoined the lecturer, "I don't want to disturb your comfort; but-"

"Oh! that's not the question," interposed the woman; "keep to the point, sir. What has your way of thinking done for you?"

The infidel endeavoured to shirk the matter again; the feeling of the meeting gave vent to uproarious applause, and Mr. Bradlaugh had to go away discomfited by an old woman.

PERFECTION.

A FRIEND called on Michael Angelo, who was finishing a statue. Some time afterward he called again; the sculptor was still at his work. His friend, looking at the figure, exclaimed, "You have been idle since I saw you last."

"By no means," replied the sculptor, "I retouched this feature and brought out this muscle; I have given more expression to this lip, and more energy to this limb."

66 'Well, well," said his friend, "but all these are trifles.'

"It may be so," replied Angelo, "but recollect that trifles make perfection, and that perfection is no trifle."-Colton.

The Fireside.

ADVICE TO WIVES.

WIVES often regret that their husbands do not talk with them. This is not the place to discuss the short-comings of a man, but sometimes when I have listened to the fault-finding, the garrulous repetitions, frivolous details, the childish exactions of sympathy and attention

THE PENNY POST BOX.

with which some women bore their husbands when they are overburdened and anxious with care and work, I have not wondered that some men grow taciturn in their homes. But it is a great loss if a man is silent among his wife and children. The husband and wife live 80 much of the time in a different world that a free intercourse can be a great help and pleasure to each of them. You will not be likely to make a man talk by telling him that he ought to talk, or scolding him because he does not do so. Make it a pleasure for him to talk with you. Exercise good sense, good temper and tact in drawing him out on topics of interest to himself. Be patient under his moods of silence. Be deserving the companionship of a sensible man. Avoid talking of persons, or insignificant details concerning yourself or your work. Have something interesting and valuable to say. The story of your child's prattle may be full of interest. The number of pies you have made, or the rooms you have swept, may not be worth repeating. Cultivate the graces of character, speech, and tones of voice, and you may find that the man who was glad to escape from the loquacious, complaining, exacting woman, goes reluctantly from her who knows when to talk and when to be silent, "who openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in whose tongue is the law of kindness."

The Penny Post Box.

BIBLE ARITHMETIC.

Addition. Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. 2 Peter i. 5-17.

Add in your heart this perfect number of seven graces together, and if these things be in you, and abound, they will make you neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Subtraction. He that lacketh these things is blind, and can not see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. 2 Peter i. 9.

Multiplication. Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord. 2 Peter i. 2.

He that ministereth seed to the sower doth minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness. 2 Cor. ix. 10.

Division.-Come out from ainong them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18.

FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY.

Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry.

Facts.

At one establishment in Sheffield, six hundred and thirty-one tons of sheet steel were manufactured and sold in one year to be made into steel pens. Each ton of steel averages about one million pens.

He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed. Socrates.

He who has not forgiven an enemy has never yet tasted one of the most sublime enjoyments of life.-Lavater.

I am more afraid of my own heart I have within me the great pope, self. than of the Pope and all his Cardinals.

-Luther.

The highest balloon ascension is said to be that of Guy-Lussac in 1804. He attained a height of 23,000 feet, or 2,000 feet higher than the top of religion whose very dog and cat are not I would give nothing for that man's Chimborazo. The barometer was only the better for it.-Rowland Hill. thirteen inches high; the thermometer eighteen degrees below freezing to commit but we shall find a greater There is no sin we can be tempted point. The results was very injurious satisfaction in resisting than in comto the aeronaut's health, principally from the absence of the accustomed mitting.-Mason. pressure of the atmosphere. His face and neck were swollen enormously, and the blood flowed freely from eyelids, nose, ears, and lungs.

A gigantic Japanese crab has been placed in the British Museum, the claws of which are six feet in length. The triangular body is comparatively

small.

The ostrich is still found wild in Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia. Successful cures of poisonous snake bites, by injecting ammonia into the veins are reported. Another method is, to tie a tight ligature above the wound, and then to suck it thoroughly.

Bints.

Those who have not suffered know not what they have to gain.-Alger.

The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues the better we like him.-Emerson.

The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt till they are too strong to be broken.-Dr. Johnson.

Prefer diligence before idleness, unless you esteem rust above brightness. -Plato.

It is a great misfortune not to endure misfortune.-Bion.

Gems.

Religion is the best armour in the world, but the worst cloak.

It is in our mind, and not in our surroundings, that we must find our happiness.

It matters not what a man loses if he saves his soul; but if he loses his soul it matters not what he saves.

When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass,

Oh, breath of public praise, shortlived and vain! Oft gained without desert, as often lost unmerited!

If sensuality be our only happiness, we ought to envy the brutes, for instinct is a surer, shorter, safer guide to such happiness than reason.

"Don't shiver for last year's snow," a saying of Archbishop Whately's, is applicable to those who make themselves miserable over troubles that are past.

The more we forsake simplicity in anything, the more we multiply the means of corruption and error.

POETIC SELECTIONS.-THE CHILDREN'S CORNER.

Poetic Selections.

THE MUSIC OF THE SEA.

THE gray, unresting sea,

Adown the bright and melting shore, Breaking in untold memory,

Makes music evermore.

Centuries of vanished time,

Since this glad earth's primeval morn, Have heard the grand, unpausing chime, Momently new-born.

Like as in cloistered piles,

Rich bursts of massive sounds upswell;
Ringing along dim-lighted aisles,
With a spirit-trancing spell;

So on the surf-white strand,

Chants of deep peal the sea-waves raise,
Like voices from a viewless land,
Hymning a hymn of praise.

By times in thunder notes

The blooming billows shoreward surge:
By times a silver laugh it floats;
By times a low, soft dirge.

Souls more ennobled grow,

Listing the worthy anthem rise;
Discords are drowned in the great flow
Of Nature's harmonies.

Men change, and "cease to be,"
And empires rise, and grow, and fall,

But the weird music of the sea

Lives and outlives them all.

The mystic song shall last
Till time itself no more shall be;
Till seas and shores have pass'd,
Lost in eternity. -Once a Week.

GOOD FOR A TIRED SOUL.

WHAT is good for a tired soul?
Wealth and wisdom, and homage rare,
Gems from shores where bright sands roll,
And flash and fade in the sunset air;-
The cup of song with its tempting foam,
A thornless path to ambition's goal,
Splendour and rank in a palace home,-
These shall we give to a tired soul?

Oh, give to the tired soul rest, long rest,
From tumult, and doubt, and grievous
pain;

Bring back the dreams of childhood blest,
Fair, untarnished, and pure again.

Give to the tired soul the key

To the boundless wealth of our Father's love:

Point out that path to all men free,

That ends at the foot of the throne above;

A faith to labour with trusting hands,
And stem the tide when the billows roll,
A peace that cometh from heavenly lands,-
These shall ye give to a tired soul!

The Children's Corner.

A PLAN IN LIFE.

"WHAT is your plan in life, Neddie?" I asked a small boy, turning from his big brothers, who were talking about theirs, to which he and I had been listening; "what is yours, Neddie?"

"I am not big enough for a plan yet," said Neddie, "but I have a purpose."

"That is good; it is not every one who has a purpose. What is your purpose, Neddie ?"

"To grow up a good boy, so as to be a good man like my father," said Neddie. And by the way he said it, it was plain he meant it. His father was a noble Christian man, and Neddie could not do better than to follow his steps. A boy with such a purpose will not fail of his mark.

SCENES IN ELISHA'S LIFE.

It is a quiet series of pictures we have before us, but all having one grand moral-" Have faith in God."

The first shows us a sad woman-what we should now call a minister's widow. Her husband's pittance had never been enough to feed the family. He had been obliged to borrow in a vague hope that some day he might pay. But death had come; and now the widow, crushed by the bereavement, is aroused from her grief to receive a new blow. The creditor avails himself of a newfangled law of idolatrous Israel (utterly at war with the law of God as given in Lev. xxv. 39), to seize the widow's two boys as slaves. In the terror of her agony she rushes to Elisha.

"What shall I do for thee?" asked the sympathizing prophet. The Spirit of God answers, not she. The prophet is full of relief. Heaven has heard her cry, and Elisha shall act for heaven.

A pot of oil was all the widow's house contained of marketable value. It was nothing to the debt. Ah! little she knew, when that pot of oil first came into the house, that God was going to use it as a text for a great practical sermon of His own on faith, not only to her, but to all the world to all time. Mercies do not come in with parade. They slip in at the chinks.

The prophet sets her to borrowing. What! had she not had enough of borrowing? The burnt child dreads the fire. But she recognizes Elisha as God's agent. His word is God's word; and borrow she will. But now she is to borrow not money, but potspots from this neighbour, pots from that neighbour-all the pots she can find. The neighbours must think her mad. It is a wonder they lend her the pots. But she is very sane. Trusting in God is the sanest thing one can do. The prodigal son, when he began to trust his father, is said to have come to himself.

Now she is in the house-a one-room house, probably-with her lots of pots and her two sons. What next? The prophet has told her. She takes the original pot of oil, and begins to pour into one of the borrowed ones. It is full; and the second, and the third. The sons bring the pots, and she fills them. Now they are full. Her faith has triumphed. In its flowing white heat she sends for more pots, but the neighbourhood can yield no more. It is enough. God has supplied her wants. If she may want on the morrow, God will supply her again. She pays her

« AnteriorContinuar »