FACTS, HINTS, GEMS. Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry. Facts. Over 1,250,000 people are still receiving relief in India. An artificial flower factory in Paris employs 1100 girls, all under 20. In 1876 there were 1,209,490 dog licenses granted in England, and 152,686 in Scotland. Mr. Tennyson's works are said to be worth some £6,000 or £7,000 yearly to him. The King of Holland is going to exhibit at the Paris Exposition a collection of 40,000 tulips. Accounts from Tripoli and Barbary state that an area of 100 miles has been devastated by locusts. The crops are entirely destroyed and a famine is believed to be imminent. Severe distress already prevails. The milk of a Jersey cow at Pittsburg, Pa., dwindled down to nothing from some mysterious cause, when an investigation revealed the fact that a family of rats came every night and standing on their hind legs reached her udder and relieved the cow of her supply of the lacteal fluid by the sucking process. Hints. My poor are my best patients. God pays for them.-Boerhaave. Love is precisely to the moral nature what the sun is to the earth.-Balzac. Striking manners are bad manners. -Robert Hall. On some countenances is written a history; on others, merely a date. I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent even though he is in the right. The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look surly upon you; laugh at it, and with it, and it is a jolly, kind companion.-Thackeray. Don't be frightened away from any pursuit because you have only a little to devote to it. If you can have nothing more, a smattering is infinitely better than nothing. Gems. Nothing can be in itself uncertain; it is we that are uncertain.-Whately. To be very attractive to all sorts of people, one must have great readiness of sympathy. the hard ones will take care of themTake care of the easy things, and selves. Whately. The vices of the rich and great are mistaken for errors, and those of the poor and lowly for crimes. The truths that we least wish to hear are those which it is most to our advantage to know.-Chinese Maxim. by another's learning, he can never be Though a man may become learned wise but by his own wisdom. It is a strange desire, to seek power and lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and lose power over a man's self.-Bacon. He who can take advice is sometimes superior to him who can give it.-Von Knebel. The more enlarged is our mind, the more we discover in men of originality. Your commonplace people see no difference between one and another.-Pascal. The reason why the old painters were so greatly superior to the modern, is that a greatly superior class of men applied themselves to the art.-John Stuart Mill. It is my decided opinion that the mind does more by frequently returning to a difficult problem, than by sticking to it without interruption.— John Stuart Mill. The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second wilfully preferred. -Bancroft. POETIC SELECTIONS.-THE CHILDRENS' CORNER. Poetic Selections. WORK AND WAIT. FORTY days and forty nights, Blown about the broken waters, Noah and his sons and daughters; Forty days they beat and blowForty days of faith, and lo! The olive leaf, the lifted heights, War and famine, wail and woe- The mighty Moses lifts a hand Forty days to fast and pray, Of patient sacrifice and tears Lo! what are all of these the day Lift your horns, exult and blow, The trumpets blew, blew loud, and lo! REST. -Joaquin Miller. Rest is not quitting The busy career; Rest is the fitting Of self to one's sphere. "Tis the brook's motion, Fleeting to ocean After this life. "Tis loving and serving -Goethe. THE SLEEPING CHILD. FROM THE GERMAN. WITH Sweet song, lulls the mother Her fond eye and no other How can he,-roguish fellow!- His drowsy eyes half close. Who rests beneath love's eyes. TO-DAY. Lo, here hath been dawning This new day is born; Into eternity At night will return. The Childrens' Corner. TEN GOOD FRIENDS. "I wish I had some good friends to help me on in life," cried idle Dennis, with a yawn. "Good friends! why, you have ten !" replied his master. "I'm sure I haven't half so many, and those I have are too poor to help me." "Count your fingers, my boy," said his master. Dennis looked at his large, strong hands. "Count thumb and all," added the master. "I have: there are ten," said the lad. "Then never say you have not ten good friends, able to help you on in life. Try what those true friends can do before you begin grumbling and fretting because you do not get help from others." CURIOUS CUSTOMS OF LAPLANDERS. THE Laplanders are very lean in flesh, having thick heads, prominent foreheads, hollow and clear eyes, short, flat noses, and wide mouths. They are swift of foot and very strong, so that a bow which a Norwegian can scarcely half bend they will draw to the full, the arrow reaching to the head. The usual exercises are running races, and climbing inaccessible rocks and high trees. Though nimble and strong, they never walk upright, but always stooping, a habit they get by frequently sitting in their cottages on the ground. Originally pagans, and most superstitious, they have for some centuries been Christians, and have produced many eminent and intelligent men. The manners and customs of the Laplanders in regard to marriage are very peculiar. First they seek for a maiden well stocked with reindeer-which, in case of marriage, is secured to the child by her parents-and then comes the offer. Accompanied by his father and one or more friends, who are to intercede for him, he makes for the hut of his intended, and waits at the door until he is summoned. His best man addresses the father, discloses his strong affection for his daughter, and trusts he will give her in charge to him. He styles him as the high and mighty Father, the worshipful Father (as if he were one of the Patriarchs), the best and most illustrious Father. gives his consent. The loving couple then meet. Then come the presents, the rarest delicacies that Lapland affords reindeer tongue, beaver flesh, and many other dainties. If she accepts the presents, the future marriage is arranged; but if she rejects his suit, she casts them down at his feet. The full approbation of the marriage and the celebration of the wedding is often deferred for a considerable time, which they employ in courting. The object of giving time is to squeeze the bridegroom to the fullest extent (that is for presents, etc.) The day before the marriage the relations and friends of the bride and bridegroom resort to the bride's hut to deliver their presents. The bridegroom is bound to present the father with a silver cup, a kettle of copper, or alchymy, a bed, or at least a handsome bedding; the mother a girdle of silver, a robe of honour, which they call vospi, a whisk which they wear about their neck, and which hangs down to their breast, interlaced with bosses of silver, called krake. In addition, he gives presents to the brothers, to the brothers' sisters, and all near kindred, in the shape of silver spoons, silver bosses, and other ornaments of silver; for each of them must have a present if he means to - He THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. obtain his bride. All things arranged, they proceed to the church in the following order, and are married according to the Christian rite:-The bride is led by two men, her father and brother, if alive, otherwise by two of her nearest relatives. She is dragged to the church by them, showing sadness and dejection, and great unwillingness and reluctancy to her marriage. A wedding feast follows. Each person invited contributes his share of provisions. At the feast table no person helps himself, but receives his meat at the hand of a Laplander. If the hut is not large enough for the company, they climb up to the roof of the hut, mostly boys and girls, and then let down a fishing line and hook up the food. The married couple must remain a year in the service of the father, then can they set up for themselves. The father then bestows upon his daughter the reindeer which are her due, given to her in her younger days, also furniture, and a dowry of a hundred or more reindeer. Then all their relations return all the presents they have made. The Lapps may be said to be, in the full sense of the word, a moral race. They have no school-masters. The father instructs the boy, the mother the girl. Soon after baptism, they bestow on their infant, if it be a female, a female reindeer, and upon the horns they engrave her name, so as to prevent all controversies or quarrels. She receives another when she cuts her first tooth, which they call pannikeir-that is, tooth reindeer; and he who first spies the tooth is entitled to a reindeer calf. If the parents die, the nearest relation becomes the guardian. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. 66 THE most careless reader has probably been struck with the contrast between the delivery of this sermon and the delivery of the Law on Sinai. We think of that as a fiery law," whose promulgation is surrounded by the imagery of thunders and lightnings, and the voice of the trumpet sounding long and waxing louder and louder. We think of this as flowing forth in divinest music amid all the calm and loveliness of the clear and quiet dawn. That came dreadfully to the startled conscience from an Unseen Presence, shrouded by wreathing clouds, and destroying fire, and eddying smoke; this was uttered by a sweet, human voice, that moved the heart most gently in words of peace. That was delivered on the desolate and storm-rent hill, which seems with its red granite crags to threaten the scorching wilderness; this on the flowery grass of the green hill-side which slopes down to the THE DANUBE. silver lake. That shook the heart with terror and agitation; this soothed it with peace and love. And yet the New Commandments of the Mount of Beatitudes were not meant to abrogate, but rather to complete, the law which was spoken from Sinai to them of old; that law was founded on the eternal distinction of right and wrong-distinctions strong and irremoveable as the granite bases of the world. Easier would it be to sweep away the heaven and the earth, than to destroy the least letter, one yod-or the least point of a letter, one projecting horn-of that code which contains the very principle of all moral life. Jesus warned them that He came not to abolish that law, but to obey and fulfil; while at the same time He taught that this obedience had nothing to do with the Levitical scrupulosity of a superstitious adherence to the letter, but was rather a surrender of the heart and will to the innermost meaning and spirit which the commands involved. He fulfilled that olden law by perfectly keeping it, and by imparting a power to keep it to all who believe in Him, even though He made its cogency so far more universal and profound.-Farrar's Life of Christ. THE DANUBE. THE Danube, from its source to its mouth, in an air line, is 1,020 miles, but the stream is so tortuous that its actual length is 1,820 miles, and it traverses nearly 22 degrees of longitude and five and a half of latitude. The Danube and its tributaries drain an area of 300,000 square miles. At Belgrade, the capital of Servia, it receives the water of the Save, and then pursues an easterly course, constituting the boundary between Austria and Servia, until it reaches the Transylvania or eastern Carpathians, at the extreme western end of Roumania. Its course through the range is eighty miles, and the pass offers a great obstacle to navigation. The river is narrowed to less than half its breadth above, and in seven different places there are rapids and whirlpools, of which those in the so-called Iron Gate, below Old Orsova, are the most violent. At this point, opposite the small village of Ticheviztha, the stream is narrowed from the width of a mile to about 180 yards, and with a depth, as far as can be ascertained, from the violence of the current, of from 80 to 100 feet. The mountains on either side are very lofty, nearly 5,000 feet high, those on the Austrian side being 1,000 feet higher than those on the opposite bank. The mountains rise nearly sheer |