THE FIRESIDE. THE PENNY POST BOX. HOW TO AVOID ANXIETY.-Payson, on his dying-bed, said to his daughter, "You will avoid much pain and anxiety if you will learn to trust all your concerns in God's hands. 'Cast your cares on Him; for He careth for you.' But if you merely go and say that you cast your care upon Him, you will come away with the load upon your shoulders." The Fireside. READING. be LET us take time for reading. It will never come if we wait to have every speck of dirt removed from each article we use. We can always find something else to do, and conscientious housekeepers, with little taste for mental pursuits, are apt to make great blunders. "The life is more than meat, and body than raiment," which means-if I may allowed to preach a wee bit of a sermon-that you yourself, with all your immortal faculties, are of more, vastly more importance than your house and furniture, and clothing and cookery, and these are utterly worthless if they serve as hindrances instead of helps to your individual culture. No kind of labour is degrading if done with a worthy motive, and no motive can be nobler than the womanly desire to make a pleasaut home. With this end in view-with love as a prompter-washing and darning and scrubbing are all elevated from drudgery to a nobler place. But our home cannot be properly attractive and profitable to our families if we ourselves are dull and harassed. brothers and fathers, and husbands and sons, need cheerful and intelligent companions at home far more than they need nice dinners and spotless linen. It is necessary that good homekeepers should also read and reflect and listen and converse. The Penny Post Box. Our HATS AS LIFE PRESERVERS. IN the absence of the proper appliances for preventing accidents by drowning, it may be the means of saving a few lives if we call attention to some suggestions printed in 1806, "On means of assisting persons in danger of drowning," by Mr. Lawson. It seems that this gentleman had taken some trouble to ascertain what articles were most readily and universally to be found at hand in all cases which could be converted into a floating apparatus, either for the use of the person in danger, or of those who might venture to his assistance. Mr. Lawson came to the conclusion that the buoyancy afforded by a common hat FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY. reversed on the water, answered in great measure those conditions. A hat thus reversed will admit of being loaded with nearly ten pounds' weight before it will sink, and will bear seven pounds with safety; and as the body of a man is about the same weight as the water, a buoyancy of seven pounds will effectually prevent his sinking. To render the hat more manageable for this purpose, and less liable to fill with water from accidents, Mr. Lawson recommended that it should be covered with a pocket handkerchief laid over its aperture, and tied firmly on the crown; a tied part would, he asserted, enable a man who did not know how to swim safely to assist any one in danger. When two hats can be had, a stick should be run through the tied single hat prepared in this manner, held by the parts of the handkerchiefs which cover them, and if more hats can be got, so much the better. Four hats thus fastened to a common walking stick will sustain at least twenty-eight pounds. When a stick is not at hand, another handkerchief tied to the lower parts of those which covered two hats, would thus unite them like a pair of swimming corks, and make them equally convenient. If a man happens to fall out of a ship or boat, he may support himself till he can get assistance by turning his hat on its crown, and holding by its brim with both hands so as to keep the hat level on the water. Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry. Facts. The recent typhoon and tidal wave on the coast of China was more severe than at first supposed. It is estimated that at least 20,000 lives were lost, and one town was completely laid in ruins. Much property was also destroyed by the burning of buildings by pirates for spoils. Dogs are evidently better appreciated in England than in New York, 600,000 licenses having been issued last year. Two millions and a quarter of people have emigrated from Ireland to America during the last twenty-two years. A petrifled butterfly was found in a Dubuqe quarry the other day, and all the delicate outlines as perfect as in life. Hints. Do not talk while others are reading. Do not laugh at the mistakes of others. Refrain from loud and boisterous laughter. Neglect the duty of an hour and it is an hour irretrievably lost. Our passions are like convulsive fits which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us weaker ever after. Gems. Custom may lead a man into many errors; but it will justify none. Without friends the world is but a wilderness. Use temporal things, but desire eternal. True greatness of life is to be master of ourselves. Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. Enjoyment stops where indolence begins. Men inust not only pray that God would help them, but they must make an effort to help themselves. POETIC SELECTIONS.-THE CHILDRENS' CORNER. Poetic Selections. HYMN OF THE ASCENSION. BRIGHT portals of the sky, Embossed with sparkling stars, With diamantine bars, Loose all your bolts and springs, The soul's eternal food, Earth's joy, delight of heaven, All Truth, Love, Beauty, Good, To Thee, to Thee, be praises ever given ! -Drummond of Hawthornden. EUEN SONG. THE Day is spent, and hath his will on mee; I and ye Sunn haue run our races, I went ye slower, yet more paces, That in your roofs may come the King of Ffor I decay, not hee. kings. Scarfed in a rosy cloud, He doth ascend the air; Straight doth the moon Him shroud With her resplendent hair; Of that fair lamp which flames of beauty He towers those golden bounds Heaven's axle seems to bend Lord, make my loss up, and sett mee free If thou deferr this light, then shadow mee: shade Ffouling her nest, my earth invade: As if shades knew not Thee. But Thou art Light and Darkness both If that bee dark we cannot see, Yet Thou art not so dark since I know this, That robed in glory heaven's King may Since Light Thy Darkness is. ascend. O well-spring of this All, Thy Father's image live, O lett my Soule, whose keyes I must deliver -George Herbert. "Read, THERE was once a very little boy who used to ask his mother a great many questions, and how do you think she answered him? and you will know," said she; and then she would give him books, where he found all he wished to know. Sometimes, too, this little boy used to wish that he could do this difficult thing, or that difficult thing, and instead of discouraging him, this good mother would say one little word, and that word was, "Try." The little boy was Sir William Jones, afterwards one of the most learned men that ever lived. DOCTRINE EMBODIED IN LIFE. A COMMON Street cry of the day is, Give us plenty of your charity, but none of your dogmas. In other words, Give us plenty of your sweet fruit, but don't bother us with your hidden mysteries about roots and engrafting. For our part, we join heartily in the cry for more fruit; but we are not content to tie oranges with tape on dead branches, lighted with small tapers, and dance around them on a winter evening. This may serve to amuse children; but we are grown men, and life is earnest. We, too, desire plenty of good fruit; and therefore we busy ourselves in making the tree good, and then cherish its roots with all our means and all our might. There are two errors, equal and opposite. Those who teach high doctrine, and wink at slippery practice in themselves and others, fall into a pit on the right hand; those who preach up all the charities, and ignore or denounce the truth and the faith that grasps it, fall into a pit on the left. Let not one man say, I have roots; and another, I have fruits. If you have roots, let us see what fruits they bear; if you have fruits, cherish the root whereon they grow. A class of men is springing and pressing to the front in our day who laud charity at the expense of truth. The truth exterior to the human mind, which God has presented in His Word, they ignore as unnecessary, rather than denounce as false. Doctrine, as truth fixed and independent, they seem to think a hindrance rather than a help toward their expected millennium of charity. In their view, a man may indeed become a model of goodness although he believe sincerely all the doctrines of the gospel; but he may reach that blessed state as quickly and as well although he believe none of them. Their creed is that a man may attain the one grand object of life (practical goodness) equally well with or without belief in the Christian system. That there may be no mistake in the transmission of their opinion, they take care to illustrate it by notable examples. John Bunyan, who received all the doctrines of the gospel, and Spinoza, who rejected them all, attain equally to the odour of sanctity in this modern church of charity. Our latest reformers, I suppose, came easily by their discoveries. I am not aware that they passed through any preparatory agonies like those which Luther endured at Erfurt. Your philosophic regenerator of the world dispenses with a long search and a hard battle. When he brings forward for my 66 DOCTRINE EMBODIED IN LIFE. 66 acceptance his savoury dish, like poor old blind Isaac, when his slippery son presented the forged venison, I am disposed to ask, How hast thou found it so quickly, my son?" Ah! it is easy for those who have never been deeply exercised about sin to denounce dogma, and cry up charity in its stead; but whence shall I obtain charity if I abjure truth? 'Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." The Apostle John got his charity from the bosom of the Master, whereon he lay. Where do the modern apostles obtain theirs? How can you move the world if you have nothing but the world to lean your lever on? The Scriptures present the case of a man who was as free of dogma as the most advanced secularist could desire, and who was, notwithstanding, woefully lacking in charity. "What is truth?" said Pilate; and he did not wait for an answer, for he had made up his mind that no answer could be given. Pilate was not burdened with a ton, with even an ounce of dogma; yet he crucified Christ-crucified Christ, believing and confessing Him innocent. Those who in this age lead the crusade against dogma are forward to profess utmost reverence for the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. But He did not despise dogma. "Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God." Nothing more completely or abstractedly dogmatical can be found in all the creeds of the church than the short and fervid exclamation of Peter in answer to the Master's articulate demand for a confession of his faith upon the point. And how did the Master receive it? He not only acquiesced in the doctrine and the expression of it by His servant, but departing in some measure from His usual habit of calm, unimpassioned speech, He broke into an elevated and exultant commendation: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." Let men keep congenial company, and let things be called by their right names. Either doctrine-truth revealed by God and accepted by man-either doctrine is decisive and fundamental for the salvation of sinners and the regeneration of the world, or Jesus Christ was a weakling. You must make your choice. The divinity of Christ, as confessed by Peter, is a dogma. For that dogma Jesus witnessed, for that dogma Jesus died. For it was because He made Himself the Son of God that the Jewish priesthood hunted Him down. Did He give His life for a dogma that is divine and necessary for the salvation of sinners, or, did He fling it away by a mistake? Men must make their choice. Those who are not for Christ are against Him.-Dr. Arnot. |