Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

HOW TO PRAY.

with. "Enter into thy closet," said Christ, "and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret." When, therefore, you cannot be alone in your chamber, it were better to find a closet elsewhere. Many a pious sailor has found it at the masthead. Mrs. Brown, the author of the hymn—

"I love to steal awhile away,"

had one in a retired grove near by her house. Somewhere within the range of your daily occupations you may find a place where, for a few minutes, at least, you can be alone, and which, like Jacob when lying down to sleep on his desert journey under the solemn stars of night, you may make a Bethel, a house of God, and a gate of heaven.

For a like reason every one should have a customary time of prayer. We will not say when or how often; each must decide this for himself. Daniel had three times a day for formal devotions, others have even had seven. But these are no rule for us; indeed ordinarily we do not think it either practicable or even desirable. Neither can any length of time be specified in which one should be thus engaged. In all such matters, let the child of God, who loves to talk with Him, be free to do what his heart prompts. But, as we said before, we think it will be a help to him to have some customary time. Even if every secular day be so filled up with care and duty as to preclude it, there is at least the Sabbath, and that is especially the Lord's-day. Work and the world have no claim upon it, and some portion of it may be set apart habitually to thorough, faithful self-recollection, meditation and prayer.

In addition to this, and in its beneficial effects, we are almost disposed to say, more important than this, is the habit of constant mental prayer, called often ejaculatory prayer. For this, of course, there is always, with every person, the most unlimited opportunity. The Lord is ever present with His child, and may always be spoken to without hinderance. No formalities are needed, no etiquette required. Literally as free as thought may be our intercourse with Him. And there is in it the special advantage of such an interview in the moment when it is needed; the instant of temptation, of perplexity, of grief, of loneliness. We are not compelled to wait for an audience, and meanwhile to bear the burden, the danger, the want alone. The comfort which such instant prayer brings to him who has become accustomed to it, and who loves it, is unspeakable. It is, we should add, a habit that is to be cultivated. At first it may not seem so easy; the thoughts may not be at instant command; but it grows easy as it grows familiar, till

CURIOUS CUSTOMS IN ALASKA.

ultimately the heart rises to heaven spontaneously and instinctively, and finds grace to help in every time of need.

There is one special opportunity for prayer which experience greatly endears to a devout Christian. It is the hour of wakefulness at night, when by reason of care or pain one cannot sleep. A young man of our acquaintance, in relating his religious history preparatory to licensure as a candidate for the ministry, stated that he was first brought to conviction of his sin by overhearing his parents, who slept in an adjoining room, praying in the night for their children. Many things tend to favour these pillow prayers. The stillness of the hour, the surrounding darkness, the overarching sky glittering in the jewelry of night, the sense of human weakness and of the all-embracing fatherhood and guardianship of God, fill the soul with a sweet and reverent sense of invisible things, and of the reality, the nearness and the blessedness of heaven. In such an hour we may pour out all our heart to Him who slumbereth not; we may roll off all our cares upon His allsustaining arm, we may pillow our aching heads on His sympathizing bosom, and in the consciousness of His loving presence sink at length into repose. So He giveth His beloved sleep.

CURIOUS CUSTOMS IN ALASKA.

THESE Indians, says the San Francisco Chronicle, believe in evil spirits who live in the water, and send sickness and disease among the people, a belief to which the occasional disasters caused by mussel or fish poisoning have doubtless given rise. They hold communication with these spirits through their sorcerers, but do not worship them in any way or try to propitiate them with offerings. When a Kolosh dies, his body is burned, and a rude monument placed where the ashes are buried. They believe the spirit lives forever, but have no idea of any reward for virtue or punishment for vice. According to their belief, strict distinction of rank is preserved in the other world, all the chiefs being in one place, the common people in another, and the slaves in a corner by themselves-only when slaves are killed at the funeral of their chief their souls remain in eternal attendance on their master. This cruel custom was said to be abolished under the Russian rule, but it always has existed, and is kept up to the present day, though the ceremonies are performed out of the reach of the authorities. Several cases of this kind have occurred since the fransfer of the territory, in spite of the vigilance of the authorities, and no

DEAK'S SIMPLICITY OF LIFE.

wonder, as our government has done nothing to suppress slavery where it exists right under the very eyes of military rule. When

a child is born it is carried and nursed by the mother until it is able to crawl and munch away on a dried salmon; then the scanty clothing of fur with which it was covered at first is removed, and, to strengthen its constitution, the child is immersed in the river or sea every morning; but as their own parents would be likely to yield to the piteous cries of the little martyrs to discipline, this duty is generally intrusted to an uncle or some other relative, who stops all weeping and screaming with a liberal application of the switch. The children implicitly obey their parents at all ages, and great care is bestowed upon the old and disabled. Orphans are always provided for by the community, and fare as well as any of the children. When a young man wishes to marry, he first asks the consent of his parents; and when that is obtained, he goes to the village where his intended lives, and sends a proposal through some "mutual friend," and if the answer is favourable, he repairs to the house at once with some presents for the parents and relatives of the girl, and then takes immediate possession of his new chattel without any further ceremonies. A short time after this the new Benedick pays a visit to his wife's relations in company with her, and if she has nothing to complain of, then presents must be made to him and his bride, exceeding in value those he made at first. The Koloski only regard relationship on the mother's side, and the succession and inheritance are confined to the female line.

DEAK'S SIMPLICITY OF LIFE.

MANY interesting anecdotes are told of the dead statesman, illustrating the Spartan-like simplicity of his life. Titles and decorations were offered him in abundance, but he refused them all. Lucrative posts were pressed upon him in vain. He would hold no office but that of representative of the people. A landed estate brought him in a small income. It is said that his expenses were only £200 a year. He lived in a little apartment up two flights of stairs. Many were the attempts made by his friends, in collusion with his landlord, to persuade him to change his quarters to the floor below, but all were unsuccessful. The municipality gave his name to the street in which he lodged. That would, no doubt, have induced him to move had he not known that wherever he went the name would follow him. When summoned to meet the Emperor in the palace at Buda, to confer upon

PECULIARITIES OF THE TIGER.

the new form of government, he went in a one-horse cab, wearing his every-day clothes. Probably he did not possess such an

article as a dress-coat.

The courtiers were scandalized that he should invade the sacred presence of majesty in such apparel, but he represented the organized will of the Hungarian nation, and the Emperor would have received him gladly if he had worn no coat at all.

He used to ride to the House of Representatives in an omnibus that passed his door. A carriage was presented him, but he refused to accept it. Then some of his aristocratic admirers who were unwilling that their great leader should, in his feeble health, be crowded in a public conveyance, bought one of the omnibuses of the line, and at the hour when he left his lodgings the vehicle regularly approached his door as if it had just come along and had not yet picked up any passengers. As soon as he got in, it drove directly to the Parliament House. After a while Deak discovered the cheat, and never entered the pretended omnibus afterward. He accepted but one legacy, and that was the three penniless children of his dead friend, the poet Petofy, the author of the Szozat-the Magyar Marseillaise, -whose patriotic verses had made him much beloved by the people. As soon as it was known that Deak had undertaken the care of the orphans, a subscription was set on foot, and a fund amounting to over £40,000 was raised for them in a few days. They thus became rich, but their benefactor died as he had lived, poor as far as material possessions constitute wealth, but in a true sense the richest man in all Hungary. His wealth was the love of a whole nation, won by his unselfish devotion to the cause of freedom.

PECULIARITIES OF THE TIGER.

AN authority upon tigers writes that one of the most curious and, at the same time well-attested peculiarities of the tiger is, that he does not naturally possess, but easily acquires, a love of human flesh. At first, tigers appear to bow to that instinctive dread of man which is natural to all animals. The natives are aware of this habit, and carry on their usual avocations, as grass-cutters, fruit-gatherers, herdsman, etc., close to a thicket where a tiger is known to be lying. It is not merely fatalism, as might be supposed, that renders them thus apathetic, but the knowledge that so long as tigers can procure other food they will not injure man. Even when one of their cattle is struck drown, they run up and often

POETRY.

frighten the tiger from the body of his victim by shouting and beating sticks on the ground. These "aheers," or herdsman, too, armed with what Aristotle calls the courage derived from experience, will conduct the sportsman up to the "kill" with fearless confidence. Like the cobra, they hold the tiger in superstitious reverence. In may parts, says Dr. Fayrer, the natives will avoid mentioning his name, save by a variety of periphrases or euphemisms, and will not kill him even when they have a fair opportunity to do so, for fear that his spirit will haunt them or do them mischief after death. But when the tiger has once tasted human flesh, the spell of man's supremacy is broken, and ever after that, it is said, he prefers it to any other.

Poetry.

REST IN THE GRAVE.

REST in the grave!-but rest is for the weary,
And her slight limbs were hardly girt for toil;
Rest is for lives worn-out, deserted, dreary,

Which have no brightness left for death to spoil.
We yearn for rest, when power and passion wasted
Have left to memory nothing but regret:
She sleeps, while life's best pleasures, all untasted,
Had scarce approached her rosy lips as yet.

Her childlike eyes still lacked their crowning sweetness,
Her form was ripening to more perfect grace.
She died, with the pathetic incompleteness

Of beauty's promise on her pallid face.

What undeveloped gifts, what powers untested,
Perchance with her have passed away from earth;
What germs of thought in that young brain arrested
May never grow and quicken and have birth!
She knew not love who might have loved so truly,
Though love-dreams stirred her fancy, faint and fleet;
Her soul's ethereal wings were budding newly,

Her woman's heart had scarce begun to beat.

We drank the sweets of life, we drink the bitter,
And death to us would almost seem a boon;
But why, to her, for whom glad life were fitter,
Should darkness come ere day had reached its noon?

-

No answer, save the echo of our weeping

Which from the woodland and the moor is heard,

Where, in the spring-time, ruthless storm-winds sweeping
Hath slain the unborn flower and new-fledged bird.

-Temple Bar.

« VorigeDoorgaan »