HEAR AND DIGEST.

BY REV. H. HARBAUGH, D. D.,

There is no doubt at the present day, a too greedy desire for hearing, and not sufficient exercise in digesting what is heard, and zeal in doing the will of God enjoined. There is a great truth in the conduct of the Indian, whom a friend took with him to the morning service. The Red. man was all attention. Returning from church, the white man asked the Indian, how he liked it?

"Me like it much," replied the Indian, thankfully, "very good—all good-much good!"

The white man thought, that, as the Indian liked it so well, he would of course go again in the evening; and he, accordingly, called on him again with that view. But the son of the forest had not yet learned, that going to church, and hearing, and being pleased with the sermon, is the chief thing. Significantly shaking his head, when asked to go along to church, he replied:

"No, no-Indian not done with the one sermon. Indian not think it half over yet. Indian hear it, but not chew it, not swallow it, not make blood of it yet. Indian not hear more till done with this. Indian eat it; Indian live it first."

If Christians practiced on the principle of the Indian, and would earnestly digest what they hear, there would not be so much of that disease, which a learned German divine says prevails in Scotland-"an intolerable itch for preaching." This disease has since also spread considerably in America.

We mean not that persons should excuse themselves from attending every service that is held; but only insist, that, while they do no less hearing, they ought to do a great deal more digesting. How many good sermons are comparatively powerless, just because they are not recalled, reviewed, thought over, and really appropriated by mind and heart?

It has sometimes been a matter of surprise to us, that persons, who hear sermons every Sunday the year round, should still be found so poorly rooted and grounded in the truth, and manifest so little real divine intelligence. The reason is to be found, in want of after thought and reflection. They seem to hear only for the momentary pleasure of hearing; and are little concerned to fix their principles, to confirm their faith, and to render it intelligent, by a vigorous digestion of the truth.

If it is necessary to exhort: "Take heed how you hear;" it is also important, especially at the present day, to exhort, "Take heed how you digest what you have heard."

SATAN is very busy with us to break or interrupt our constant course of duty. Duties in order and practice are like so many pearls upon one string; if the thread be broken, it may hazard the scattering of the whole.

A CRUMB OF COMFORT FOR THE WEARY.

BY REV. H. HARBAUGH, D. D.,

We

One has said, "We cannot hinder birds from flying over us, but we can prevent them from making nests in our hair! It is just so with sin. cannot prevent temptation from assailing us: but we can, by God's grace, prevent it from injuring us. We cannot help hearing the voice of Satan, when, like a roaring lion, he goeth about; nor can we prevent any sugges tions of evil, which that dread spirit may smuggle into our hearts, but we may resist his wiles, in the strength of Christ, till he flees from us. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, will allure us at times; but we may refuse to be led captive by them.

Such assaults may trouble us, but do not reader us less acceptable to God. They may destroy our peace; but they do not vitiate our piety. The very fact, that we stand over against them, in the way of inward protest, proves, that He that is in us is stronger than he that is against If there were not true grace within, there would be no protest. That we turn our faces against them, proves that we are inwardly unwilling to surrender to them. The resistance we make, argues the presence of grace.

us.

Indeed, so far from being an evidence of the absence of grace, they are
not only an evidence of grace, but also serve to make us surely conscious
of its presence in us. The resistance made by a fort, shows that it is not
empty, but that it is in real possession of the power of resistance. The
assaults of temptation at once awaken the power of resisting grace, and
make us feel the conscious vigor of its life in us.

Hence we find that temptation is represented as desirable, to bring out
the higher and better powers of the Christian life. "Count it all joy, when
ye fall into divers temptations." They are as the storms to the oak, which
make it take a firmer hold in the earth. They are emergencies, which
serve to call forth a strength, which has lain latent, and of the full posses-
sion of which, we were never before conscious to the same extent.
"Be-
loved, think it not strange, concerning the fiery trial which is to try you,
as though some strange thing had happened unto you; but rejoice, inas-
much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that when His glory shall
be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy!"

WHICH WAY DO YOU LEAN?-"If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be." Eccl. xi: 3. There is a solemn meaning couched under this metaphor. The tree will not only lie as it falls, it will also fall as it leans. And the great question which every one ought to bring home to his own bosom, without a moment's delay, is this: What is the inclination of my soul? Does it, with all its affections, lean toward God, or from him?-J. J. Gurney.

THE KALEIDOSCOPE.

Versions of the Child's Evening Prayer have appeared in the Guardian at various times, some of them real gems, and all good. As an addendum to the collection, I have to present something-not a version of that prayer certainly, though in spirit singularly like it; and setting aside the uncouthness of the language, very beautiful.

I say it is not a version of the simple, beautiful little prayer, because it had its origin, and is in current use among a tribe of South American savages, who know not God as the Creator and Supreme Ruler of the universe, who have never heard even the name of Jesus Christ, nor ever seen a Christian missionary.

Eastward, in Bolivia, on the verge of the almost boundless meadowworld, at the base of the Geral Range, along the beautiful Gaupore river, live the Chiquitos, a race of barbarians composed of mingled races-that of the native Peruvians predominating, amalgamated with the Arinhos, Abipones, Moxas, with a slight infusion of Spanish blood, not by direct transmission, but by choulas of the sixth and seventh generations. Though barbarians, these Bolivian, Chiquitos are in nothing like the wild ferocious monsters that we almost always imagine uncivilized savages must of necessity be. On the contrary, they are social, kind, peaceful, and a quiet, harmless race, cultivating the soil, hunting, fishing, and herding their flocks, very like a more civilized, and better Christian people.

I have so many times heard not only children, but grown people of all ages repeating, in their peculiar liquid patois, this earnest appeal to their Sun deity as he sunk beneath the Western waves of the grassy plain, beseeching him to come to them again with another day of life, joy, and genial sunshine, that I have the invocation perfectly in memory, and present it, with a literal translation, reminding the reader that as the Chiquitos have no written language, I have been obliged to use in the translation such a combination of letters as best convey the sense and sound of the original:

"Makal eea ta la eken moska dirra,
Pomal seh mekin alor luti murra,
Manki waa oten jara bitin ast;

Ima veia aper wina liber dast.

TRANSLATION.

Great sun, with you we go to rest,

Come again and make us blest;

Or if in our sleep we die,

We come to thy bright realms on high.

[NOTE.]-The Chiquitos, in common with the native Peruvians, and several of the savage tribes of the interior, worship the sun as the Creator and Supreme Ruler over all, and have a belief that however wicked one may be, if he dies during the night, the spirit flies upward, pure and spotless, to the bright, happy realms of their sun deity.

A COMPLIMENTARY ACROSTIC.

COSMO.

A man or woman may be a poet ethically; but it is only the hand of a God, omnipotent and supreme, that is competent to write poetry. While

I am of the Jew perhaps, who contend that poetry has never yet been written by mortal hand, I am ready to confess that many a gem in verse approaches very near the idea. As I look upon it, the chief merit of all versification lies in consecutive common sense. Verse may flow as sweetly smooth as the smiling surface of the silvery Arno. Rhymes may jingle as harmoniously as ever did Christmas chimes; metre and measure waltz faultlessly hand in hand, and every feature be mechanically correct, and, if sense be wanting, the verse sinks to the level of the mere doggerel.

Every rhymster knows that the most difficult composition-unless common sense is sacrificed to alphabetical necessity-is writing an acrostic where the initial letters of each line stand as arbitrary leaders. The writer who can master these difficulties through an acrostic of moderate length, carrying the sense through unbroken, displays rare ingenuity in ideas, and achieves, very nearly, poetry.

As a good specimen of this sort of writing, I submit a familiar epistle recently received from a stranger, who expresses in verse his greeting, good-will, and acknowledgment of the receipt of some seeds sent by mail, the name and nature of which are intimated in italics.

TO M. E. K.

Madam, I greet you, though strangers we be,
And never may meet-still happy are we;
Devoted companions-a husband and wife
Ee'n both of us have: how happy a life!
Let "brotherly love" be the toast I shall drink
In pure sparkling water, to cheeks that are "pink."
Now Victor'll be jealous, but what does that matter?
Essaying I am, (but my tongue it will clatter)—
Essaying these lines in such form that they'll read:
"Kind friends, I received your nice package of seed."
Enclosed was your note disclosing the name,

Now thanks I return you for sending the same.
Dear Madam, my wife and I happily found
A "Russian American," all safe and sound:
Likewise a "Sicilian," seeming to seek a
Lovelier clime: now tis found with "Eureka."

Bloomfield, Ill., December 10th, 1866.

J. R. HARDING.

The copying of the above lines has begotten an inclination to run into rhyme myself, a pastime that I rarely indulge in; but happening just now to have a theme worthy of an abler master, I venture to present it in the best dress I can command.

MY PENNSYLVANIA HOME.

Know ye the land of the laurel and pine,

Of wild-wood, and cascade, of flowers and vine,
Where grandeur and beauty have lovingly met,
And Nature her seal has so royally set?

Where the pure mountain brooklet goes flashing away
In curved lines of beauty, and haloes of spray;
Where the fawn flies to cover in green forest lair.
'Mid our glens so romantic, our vistas so fair?

Where birds of bright plumage make vocal the grove
With warbled hosannahs and bird notes of love?
The ear is enchanted while passing along,
With raptures of worship, and cadence of song.

The sweet lark at sunrise, with music a-wing-
At dawn the glad mocking-birds madrigals sing,
'Mid the wild-flowers yielding their generous perfume
And yon tall pine is waving so proudly his plume.

Come to our mountain home-come when you will-
At morning or eve-there's a welcome here still
From our mothers so gentle, our fathers so grave,
Our sisters so fair, and our brothers so brave.

Dear home in the mountains! so peerless and fair,
With beauty enchanting and life-giving air,
Emerald and gold in the sun's glancing light-
And kissing the blue Juniata so bright.

Philadelphia, Jan. 1st, 1867.

MADELINE.

[NOTE.] Of all Pennsylvania's many magnificent streams, the beautiful blue Juniataboth in itself and belongings-is, probably, unrivalled in Sylvan beauty.

PRACTICAL PATRIOTISM.

If we could unmask, as God can, the motives of mankind, how much of modern patriotism we should discover to be shere pretence, instead of pure pro patria. Not one in a million of all our devoted political patriots would be found willing to re-enact the part of the noble-hearted, pure patriotthe Roman Cincinnatus.

An humble farmer, while engaged in plowing his field, was informed by messengers that the senate had elected him imperial dictator. Leaving his plow in mid-furrow, he hastened to Rome, took the imperial oath, headed the Roman legions, in a series of pitched battles, defeated and utterly routed the Valsci and Aëqui, who had beleagured the city with a vast army. Entering Rome in triumph, he resigned his command and proud position, returning to his plough, from which he had been absent sixteen days.

When eighty years old, Rome again requiring his aid called him from his agricultural pursuits, and invested him with dictatorial powers. Marching against, and utterly overthrowing Rome's enemics in a campaign of twenty-one days, he laid aside his authority the second time, and retired to his farm, refusing all rewards except the one shared mutually with his countrymen-his country's peace. Such integrity and pure patriotism under such circumstances has never been equalled by any man before or since. Cincinnatus was born in the year 456, B. C., and died 367, seven years after having the second time saved Rome from her enemies.

DOUBTFUL CAPITAL.

It is said that "time is money." So it may be, properly invested. But thousands of us have a habit of carrying it negligently about us, passing it in a very heedless manner, as if we considered it a flimsy, undesirable currency, something the sooner we are rid of the better. There is a world full of that kind of spendthrifts.

CHRISTIANS OF TINNEVELLY.

On the low, sultry plains of Tinnevelly, in southern India, live a million and a half of native inhabitants, of whom about twenty-seven thousand are at the present time devout and consistent Christians, converted from pagan idolatry by the love and labor of the Church Missionary Society of