I like George's spirit in this affair. It was noble, brave, and selfreliant beyond his years. It was the spirit that makes poor boys grow into useful and successful men. It made George do this, for in after years that little boy became a noted artist, whose praise was spoken by many tongues. All children should cherish a desire to do all they can for themselves, and to support themselves by their own labour as early as possible. Those who lean on father and mother for everything, will find it hard work to get along alone, by-and-by, as they may have to do when their parents die. While those who early learn to rely upon themselves, will have little difficulty in earning their own living. Learn, therefore, my children, to help yourselves-always minding to do so under the advice and with the consent of your parents or guardians. A TEACHER. LITTLE BELLA'S FOUR TEXTS. "MAMMA," said Bella, a little girl of six years old, one evening, to her mother, "I have four texts-one for the morning, one for the middle of the day, one for the evening, and one for when I go to bed; shall I say them to you?" "Do, my love," replied her mother. "My morning one," said Bella, "is, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners;' and my middle of the day one is, 'Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest;' and my evening one is, 'Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out;' and my one for when I go to bed is, 'God is love.' 999 "And very good and appropriate I think they are," said her mother, "for when you say in the morning, Jesus Christ came to save sinners, you may think—well, I am a sinner, so He came to save me; how I should love Him for that; and how I must try to obey Him all day; then, by the middle of the day, perhaps you have been naughty, and feel sorry for it, or something may have vexed you, and then that verse comes sweetly into your mind, 'Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest;' and, in the evening, however naughty or foolish you may have been, you can still remember the promise, 'Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out;' and then when bed-time comes, and you look back on all that has happened during the day, and how kind God has been to you in many ways, you can say, with all your heart, 'God is love."" "Yes, mamma," answered Bella, eagerly; "that's it! when I say my morning text, and think Jesus came to save me, I will love Him, and try to obey Him; and in the middle of the day, I will say, 'Come unto me,' and I will go to Jesus, and ask Him to wash me in His blood, and then I will feel Him taking me in His arms, and I will say, I will do anything mamma wants me to do, and 1 will be good; and, in the evening, when I say, 'Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out,' I will think Jesus won't say, Go away! I want a better girl than you; and, at night, when I go to bed, I will remember all these things, and I will say, 'God is love." We live to gain for us a crown The Fragment Basket. THE MORAL POWER OF THE SANCTUARY. We live to use our every power, To shun temptation's snaresTo rouse the spirit when it sinks Beneath its load of cares: To strive, amid life's battled din, A life of bliss in heaven to win. Nor do we hesitate to say, that various as are the means by which the world is converted to God, and beautifully co-operative as they are, the pivot on which the machinery rests, the main shaft that impels it, its motive power, is the fire on God's altars. To this hallowed spot the church militant and the church triumphant look with hope; and here, from under the sanctuary, the waters issue that give life to the world. The very walls of the sanctuary are monitors, and the entrance in at the doors reads the lesson, "This is the way, walk ye in it." There is no safer path, nor is there a more effective repulse to the tempter than to say to him, "I am going to the house of God." I love to look at the sanctuary in the retired village or the crowded city, in the bold foreground of the retreating shadows of the distant landscape. It is God's vineyard, "where the vine flourishes, and the tender grape appears," where the plants of righteousness, thickly set and deep, are gathering their immortal bloom. The beauties of holiness and the glories of immortality are there. Yes, I love to look at such a scene, and to say when I look at it, "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! and thy tabernacles, O Israel! as the valley are they spread forth; as gardens by the river's side; as the trees of live aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters." The dewy eve, the blushing morn, fade in comparison with the garden of God, sparkling in the beauties of holiness, and fragrant with its sweet perfume. Basha languisheth, and the flower of Lebanon languisheth: holiness never withers, its leaf is green even in the year of drought. Glorious beyond all but the foretelling pen of prophecy are the bright destinies of the sanctuary; glorious to feel and enjoy; glorious to behold; and, in seasons of darkness and despondency, glorious to look for. When that hope is realised, then will be the jubilee of the world. The ingathering of the great harvest year shall have come, when the "ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed, and the mountains drop down sweet wine, and all the hills do melt."-Dr. Spring. not "GONE, BUT NOT MISSED." There are some professors over whose graves it would be difficult for devout men to find great occasion for lamentation. Such persons wonld doubtless be missed in their families, places of business, and accustomed places of recreation; but as to her peculiar and noble offices, the Church would be compelled to say of them, "Gone, but missed." She would not miss their charities for Christ and His poor; she would not miss them at the bedside of the sick, nor in the house of the mourner; she would not miss them when great trials were to be borne, or hard labour to be done for the extension of the Gospel. In her Sabbath-school efforts and tract distributions-in her endeavours to evangelise our city, our land, our earth, with truth and holiness-she would not miss them, for they have not cheered those labours of love with their presence, their counsel, their charities, or their prayers. Like the on-hangers of an army, they move with the host to share the results of victory, but are absent when martyrs are to bleed upon the field. The loss of such to the Church by death would be graded by the benefit which their lives confer upon the world; and hence you can judge whether devout men would make great lamentation over them. Stephen fell at his post, and this pointed the grief at his loss.-Dr. Brainerd. PREPARATION FOR DEATH. When you lie down at night, compose your spirits as if you were not to awake till the heavens be no more. And when you awake in the morning, consider that new day as your last, and live accordingly. Surely Poetry. ONLY WAITING. [A VERY aged Christian, who was so poor as to be in an almshouse, was asked what he was doing now? He replied, "Only waiting." ONLY waiting till the shadows Of the day's last beam is flown ; From the heart once full of day; Till the stars of heaven are breaking Through the twilight soft and gray. Only waiting till the reapers Have the last sheaf gathered home; For the summer time is faded, And the autumn winds have come. Quickly, reapers, gather quickly The last ripe hours of my heart; For the bloom of life is withered, And I hasten to depart. Open wide the mystic gate, that night cometh, of which you will never see the morning, or that morning of which you will never see the night; but which of your mornings or nights will be such, you know not. Let the mantle of worldly enjoyments hang loose about you, that it may be easily dropped when death comes to carry you into another world. When the corn is ripe, it is ready for the sickle. So when a Christian's heart is truly weaned from the world, he is prepared for death, and it will be the more easy for him. A heart disengaged from the world is a heavenly one, and then we are ready for heaven, when our heart is there before us.-Burton. And their voices, far away; Only waiting to obey. Are a little longer grown; Of the day's last beam is flown; Then from out the gathered darkness, Holy, deathless stars shall rise, By whose light my soul shall gladly Tread its pathway to the skies. Personal Religion. THE DEATH OF A MOTHER. "I bowed down heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother." THE Social obligations of life are largely insisted upon in Scripture, especially those relating to the home circle; and where these are most observed, it will be allowed that the family is best conducted, and the loveliest feelings excited one towards another. Thus, of Abraham, God said, "I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him;" and of Joshua it is witnessed, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Such are the lives, whether male or female, that are deeply and affectionately remembered in death. Taken by itself, the supposition of the text is, that of a loving mother, as sincerely loved in return, having finished a life complete in deeds of kindness to her family, at length lost to this world, to the inexpressible grief of all around her. Let us endeavour to contemplate the DEATH OF A MOTHER. I. The relationship itself is of the most tender and endearing character. Think of it from the period of the child's earliest recollection. The most tender watchfulness; the most loving and untiring care; going down with it to the gates of the grave-for a mother's affection is most seen in suffering; or, should she go first, spending her last breath in a prayer for its welfare. Such are a child's thoughts of a mother's love. 66 But higher still. Think of this relationship before the child's recollection. Ere it saw even a dimmed light the mother cared for it-constantly it engrossed her unceasing vigilance. She fed it; imparted to it her own nature; it was herself reproduced-love producing love. "Can a mother forget her sucking child?" To the dishonour of the exceptions be it said, she may;" to the honour of humanity, however, that it is almost an impossibility. How much more endearing is this relationship when parental affection is directed and guided by God. The child is looked upon as a sacred trust to be trained for His glory. Where shall we find a more beautiful exhibition of sanctified love than in the VOL. XV. E conduct and language of Hannah, "For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of Him; therefore, also, I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord." And such is the feeling of every parent who has first given himself, or herself, unto the Lord. The Scriptures are full of illustrations in reference to this relationship. The mother of Sisera could not believe any evil of her son, but impatiently awaited his return. The utterance of David has touched thousands and tens of thousands of spirits, "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, is one of the most beautiful pictures in the Book. The mother of Zebedee's children is an example of over-anxiety. And then think, in all its bearings, of that passage which assures us, "There stood by the cross of Jesus-his mother." Therein was maternal solicitude made perfect; and it met with an ample reward. This relationship is never forgotten. A friend may be, but a mother never. A child may leave home at a very early age, or his parent may be removed from him; yet, after an interval of years and years, the picture instantly suggests the living form. The poet Cowper lost his mother at a period when we are in the habit of supposing that circumstances make little or no impression upon the childish mind; yet, upon the presentation of her portrait, fifty-three years afterwards, the following was his language: "She died when I had completed my sixth year, yet I remember her well, and am an ocular witness of the great fidelity of the copy. I remember, too, a multitude of the maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and which have endeared her memory to me beyond expression. "Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed A man may lose himself in the world and in its pleasures, but how frequently the recollection of his mother's action and prayer is instrumental in bringing him back again to reason and to God. Even a mother-in-law may be so kind as to induce one to say, "Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee;" and what multitudes arise individually to call a mother blessed! II. This relationship once dissolved, can never, in any earthly sense, be adequately replaced. |
