SCENES IN ELISHA'S LIFE.

debts first with her oil-property.

for support.

The balance is her capital

There is another pot story near the end of this dear, comforting chapter. The prophet Elisha is at Gilgal. There is a great scarcity of food in the land, probably on account of the war with Syria. War is the father of famine. At Gilgal is a theological seminary—a school or college where the sons of the prophets are trained for the ministry, some of whom the Spirit of God will one day enter, and some He will not; but it is a godly institution. Elisha and the young men are going to eat their frugal dinner. They had collected material whence they could. One youth had, while on his forage, carried off some colocynths (wild gourds) from their vines. They have a tempting look to a hungry man. The colocynths go into the olla-podrida in the big pot.

"Ŏ man of God! death in the pot!" one of the tasters cries out. The whole dinner is spoiled, and where will they get another for that day? The colocynth is not only poison, but, like a wicked man, has poisoned all the rest. There is a little meal in the cupboard. They can eat that. But what does Elisha do? He orders the meal, too, to be thrown into the pot. That was like telling the widow to borrow. Nay, I doubt whether the theological students had as much faith as the widow, for Elisha himself throws the meal in. When man was wholly poisoned by sin, there was a pure man left yet. It was the man Christ Jesus. But God threw Him in too. He was made sin for us. Is not that ruin? No; it is salvation.

Elisha and his disciples found that colocynths, when God served them, were nutritious and satisfying. It is not only enough and to spare that God will give His own who trust Him, but He will turn the noxious to be wholesome. It is not only an abundant glory that is in store for us; but the very holiness of heaven, that would have ruined us as unpardonable sinners, is now our crown of rejoicing.

This chapter brings God and His love so very near among the pots and kettles of daily life. It tells the hard worker, the poor labourer, the lone widow, the child of adversity, not to sigh too much. The dear Lord, all full of love, is close by to provide. He who feeds the sparrows will not forget or neglect any trusting heart. Oh! trust in God is a greater luxury than any in kings' palaces.

THE FOUNDER OF THE INQUISITION.

THE FOUNDER OF THE INQUISITION.

Or Dominic of Guzman we are told, upon the unerring authority of infallibility, that his life was surrounded by a cloud of miracles; that at the sound of his inspired voice the dead arose and walked, the sick were healed, the heretics converted; that often in his moments of ecstacy he floated in the air before the eyes of his disciples; that the fiercest flames refused to consume the parchment upon which were written his divine meditations; and that, in the midst of the carnage his eloquence excited, the saint ever remained the gentlest and meekest of his race. Once, as Dominic stood in the midst of a pious throng in the convent of St. Sixtus, conversing with the Cardinal Stephen, a messenger, bathed in tears, came in to announce that the Lord Napoleon, the nephew of Stephen, had been thrown from his horse, and lay dead at the convent gate. The Cardinal, weighed down by grief, fell weeping upon the breast of the saint. Dominic, full of compassion, ordered the body of the young man to be brought in, and prepared to exercise his miraculous powers. He directed the altar to be arranged for celebrating mass; he fell into a sudden ecstacy, and as his hands touched the sacred elements, he rose in the air and hung, kneeling, in empty space above the astonished worshippers. Descending, he made the sign of the cross upon the dead; he commanded the young man to arise, and at once the Lord Napoleon sprang up alive and in perfect health, in the presence of a throng of witnesses.

Such are the wonders gravely related of Dominic, the founder of the Inquisition; yet, if we may trust the tradition, the real achievements of his seared and clouded intellect far excel in their magnificent atrocity even the wildest legends of the saints. He invented or he enlarged that grand machinery by which the conscience of mankind was held in bondage for centuries, whose relentless grasp was firmly fastened upon the decaying races of Southern Europe, the converts of Hindostan, and the conquerors of Mexico and Peru; whose gloomy palaces and dungeons sprang up in almost every Catholic city of the South, and formed for ages the chief bulwarks of the aggressive career of Rome. The Holy Office, from the time of Dominic, became the favourite instrument for the propagation of the faith; it followed swiftly the path of the missionary, and was established wherever the worship of Mary extended, whether in Lima, Goa, or Japan; it devoured the Netherlands, silenced Italy or Spain, and its hallowed labours and its

PECULIARITES OF THE ARABS.

happy influences are still celebrated and lamented by all those pious but diseased intellects who advocate the use of force in creating unity of religious belief. Its memory is still dear to every adherent of infallibility; nor can any one of that grave assembly of bishops who so lately sat in St. Peter's venture to avow, without danger of heresy, that he doubts the divine origin of the institutions of Dominic.

Nothing, indeed, can be more impressive than that tender regret with which the Italian prelates lament over the fall of the venerable tribunal. Modern civilization has inflicted no deeper wound; modern governments have never more grossly invaded the rights of the infallible Church. One of the means, the bishops exclaim, which the Church employs for the eternal safety of those who have the good fortune to belong to her, is the Holy Inquisition; it cuts off the heretic, it preserves the faithful from the contagion of error; its charitable solicitude, its exhortations and its teachings, its venerable procedure, its necessary and remedial punishments, have won the admiration of generations of devoted Catholics. It has been hallowed by the approval of a series of infallible popes; it is consecrated by the voice of Heaven. For a time it may be suppressed by the action of hostile governments, by the corrupt influence of modern civilization. But the Church has never for a moment abandoned its most effective instrument; and in some happier hour, when the claims of St. Peter are acknowledged in every land, his infallible successor will seek to establish anew the charitable solicitude and remedial pains of the Holy Office.

PECULIARITIES OF THE ARABS.

No Arab is ever curious. Curiosity with all Eastern nations is considered unmanly. No Arab will stop in the street, or turn his head round to listen to the talk of bystanders. No Arab will dance, play on an instrument, or indulge in cards or any game of chance since games of chance are forbidden by the Koran. Never, moreover, invite an Arab to take a walk with you for pleasure. Although the Arabs are on occasion good walkers, they have no notion of walking for amusement; they only walk as a matter of business. Their temperance, their constant out-door habits, render all exercise for exercise' sake unnecessary; they cannot, therefore, understand the pleasure of walking for walking's sake. What Arabs like best is to sit still; and when they see

POETRY.

Europeans walking up and down in a public place in Algiers they say, Look, look, the Christians are going mad!" The Arab does not even mount on horseback except as a matter of business, or for his public fetes and carousals. And when you do walk you must never walk quickly. Just as in speaking, you should not talk fast or loud; for the Koran tells you, "Endeavour to moderate thy step, and to speak in a low tone, for the most disagreeable of voices is the voice of the ass." Indeed it was observed by a famous Arab-" Countless are the vices of men, but one thing will redeem all-propriety of speech." And again"Of the word which is not spoken I am the master, but of the word which is spoken I am the slave." The famous proverb, "Speech is of silver, but silence is of gold," is a motto of Arab origin.

66

A silent, grave people, the Arabs, and a polite one, too, as we said, very much given, nevertheless, to highway robbery on a large scale, which they call razzias in Algeria; but the Arab's tent is always open to you, and you can get any amount of couscoussou, camel's milk, or even roasted mutton, if he has it. You will be treated as a guest from God" as long as you are under his roof, after which "your happiness is in your hands," which means that your host who fed you in the evening may, at a decent distance from his tent, rifle your saddle bags in the morning, and let the "powder speak to you" if you object, after which, "Allah be merciful to you."-All the Year Round.

Poetry.

A CHILD'S WISDOM.

WHEN the cares of day are ended,
And I take my evening rest,
Of the windows of my chamber

This is that I love the best ;-
This one facing to the hill-tops

And the orchards of the west.
All the woodlands, dim and dusky,
All the fields of waving grain,
All the valleys sprinkled over

With the drops of sunlit rain-
I can see them through the twilight,
Sitting here beside my pane.

I can see the hilly places,

With the sheep-paths trod across;
See the fountains by the waysides,
Each one in her house of moss,
Holding up the mist above her
Like a skein of silken floss.

Garden corners bright with roses,
Garden borders set with mint,
Garden beds, wherein the maidens
Sow their seeds, as love doth hint,
To some rhyme of mystic charming
That shall come back all in print.
Ah! with what a world of blushes
Then they read it through and through,
Weeding out the tangled sentence
From the commas of the dew!
Little ladies, choose ye wisely,
Lest some day the choice ye rue.

I can see a troop of children-
Merry-hearted boys and girls-
Eyes of light, and eyes of darkness,
Feet of coral, legs of pearls,

Racing toward the morning school-house,
Half a head before their curls.

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

Anecdotes and Selections.

TRUE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS.

"ARE you happy ?" asked one, of old Baron Rothschild, the money king of Europe.

"Happy? Happy, when you have to sleep with pistols under your pillow? No, not happy."

Mr. Astor, when congratulated on his wealth, said, “Ah, I must leave it all when I die. It won't buy off sickness; it won't buy off sorrow; it won't buy off death."

Each had unlimited wealth, but he was not happy.

Many years ago in the reign of the English Georges, there lived a poor soldier named William Clemens. During the winter before the battle of Fontenoy, there was a revival of religion in the English camp at Bruges, and this poor soldier, away from his kindred and his native land, was greatly favoured with the peace and love of God. During the great battle his arm was shattered by a ball. They offered to take him away.

No," he said, "I have an arm left to hold the sword."

Soon after this a bullet broke his other arm. His friends gathered around him. What a pitiable sight! He was poor, with the horrors of the hospital before him. He was in a land of enemies, and the friends that he had would leave him soon. No father or mother, brother or sister, could help him in this hour of need. He looked to Christ. "How fares it with you now, brother Clemens ?" asked a pious soldier.

The wounded soldier lifted his eye glowing as with heavenly fire: “I am as happy as I can be out of paradise.”

"SEEK THINGS THAT ARE ABOVE."-Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist; but, by ascending a little, you may often look over it altogether. So it is with our moral improvements; we wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit, which would have no hold upon us if we ascended into a higher moral atmosphere. As I have heard suggested, it is by adding to our good purposes, and nourishing the affections which are rightly placed, that we shall best be able to combat the bad ones. By adopting such a course you will not have yielded to your enemy, but will have gone, in all humility, to form new alliances. You will then resist an evil habit with the strength which you have gained in carrying out a good one. You will find, too, that when you set your heart upon the things that are worthy of it, the small selfish ends which used to be so dear to it will appear almost disgusting. You will wonder that they could have had such hold upon you.—Arthur Helps.