THE KING AND THE FARMER. "No, sir," replied the old man, who of course had no idea that he was speaking to the king; "I am not so rich as that. I plough for wages." "How much do you earn a day?" asked the king. 66 Eight groschen," returned the man. tenpence of our money. it?" That would be about "That is very little," said the king. "Can you get along with "Get along! yes, indeed, and have something left." "However do you manage?" Two "Well," said the farmer, smiling, "I will tell you. groschen are for myself and my wife; with two I pay my old debts; two I lend; and two I give away for the Lord's sake." "This is a mystery which I cannot solve," said the king. "Then I must solve it for you," replied the farmer. "I have two old parents at home, who kept me and cared for me when I was young and weak and needed care. Now that they are old and weak, I am glad to keep and care for them. That is my debt, and it costs me two groschen a day to pay it. Two more I spend on my children's schooling. If they are living when their mother and I are infirm, they will keep us, and pay back what I lend. Then with my last two groschen I support my two sick sisters, who cannot work for themselves. Of course I am not compelled to give them the money; but I do it for the Lord's sake." "Now "Well done, old man," cried the king, as he finished. I am going to give you something to guess. Have you ever seen me before?" "No," said the farmer. "In less than five minutes you shall see me fifty times, and carry in your pocket fifty of my likenesses." "This is indeed a riddle which I cannot guess," said the farmer. "Then I will solve it for you," returned the king; and with that he put his hand into his pocket, and pulling out fifty gold pieces, placed them in the hands of the farmer. "The coin is genuine," said the king, "for it also comes from our Lord God, and I am His paymaster; I bid you good-bye." And he rode off, leaving the good old man overwhelmed with surprise and delight. POETRY.-ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. Poetry. A HOME. WHAT is a home? A guarded space, And bask and purr and be at rest. And Pleasure furl her silken wing, A precious and peculiar thing? By either Hope or Memory,- All for the pleasure of a few? "Home ?" |No. Art may bloom, and peace and Grief may refrain and Death forget; Its lamps burn freely in the night; Gives out a fragrance on the air- The few, they bask in closer heat; The many catch the farther ray; Life higher seems, the world more sweet, And hope and heaven less far away. So the old miracle anew Is wrought on earth and proved And crumbs apportioned for a few, Anecdotes and Selections. A VISIT TO BETHANY.-We went on over the hill to Bethany; we had climbed up by the path on which David fled from Absalom, and were to return by the road of the triumphal entry. All along the ridge we enjoyed a magnificent panorama: a blue piece of the Dead Sea, the Jordan plain extending far up toward Hermon with the green ribbon of the river winding through it, and the long, even range of Moab hills, blue in the distance. The prospect was almost Swiss in its character, but it is a mass of bare hills, with scarcely a tree, except in the immediate foreground, and so naked and desolate as to make the heart ache; it would be entirely desolate but for the deep blue of the sky, and an atmosphere that bathes all the great sweep of peaks and plains ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS. in colour. Bethany is a squalid hamlet, clinging to the rocky hillside, with only one redeeming feature about it-the prospect. A few wretched one-story huts of stone and a miserable handful of Moslems now occupy this favourite home and resting-place of our Lord. Close at hand, by the roadside, cut in the rock, and reached by a steep descent of twenty-six steps, is the damp and doubtful tomb of Lazarus, down into which any one may go for half a franc paid to the Moslem guardian. The house of Mary and Martha is exhibited among the rocks and fragments of walls; upon older foundations loose walls are laid, rudely and recently patched up with cut stones and fragments and pieces of Roman columns. The house of Simon the leper, overlooking the whole, is a heap of ruins. It does not matter, however, that all these dwellings are modern; this is Bethany, and when we get away from its present wretchedness, we remember only that we have seen the very place that Christ loved. We returned along the highway of the entry slowly, pausing to identify the points of that memorable progress, up to the crest where Jerusalem broke upon the sight of the Lord, and whence the procession, coming round the curve of the hill, would have the full view of the city. He who rides that way to-day has a grand prospect. One finds Jerusalem most poetic when seen from Olivet, and Olivet most lovely when seen from the distance of the city walls. One CARLYLE ON JOB.-I call the Book of Job, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with a pen. feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew-such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble book! All men's book! It is our first, oldest statement of the neverending problem, man's destiny, and God's ways with him here on this earth. And all in such free, flowing outlines; grand in its simplicity, and its epic melody, and repose of reconcilement. There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So true every way; true eyesight, and vision for all things, material things no less than spiritual; the horse-" hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?"-he laughs at the shaking of the spear! Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the heart of mankind; so soft and great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars! There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit. HEARERS AND NOT DOERS.-He who hears the Word and does not do it is a monster in religion. He is all head and ears, having neither hands to work with nor feet to walk with. There is a disease to which children are subject, called the rickets, wherein their heads swell as large as two heads, and their legs are crooked, which hinders their going. We have many rickety Christians; they hear much and their heads swell with empty notions and undigested opinions, but their legs are crooked, their walking is perverse. Every such person is a mocker of God, a deceiver of himself, a discourager of ministers, a barren soil, a bad servant, a beholder of his natural face in a glass, a builder of his house upon the sands.-Phillip Henry. THE FIRESIDE. KING GEORGE AND THE STABLE BOY.-King George the Third was a kind-hearted king, and often spoke kindly to one of his stable boys. When the boy disgraced himself by stealing some oats, the king hearing of it, had the boy brought before him. The poor boy expected to be punished, but the king seeing the boy in tears, and hearing he was sorry, said, Well, I forgive you;" and then, in the hearing of all, he said, "If any one says a word to you about the oats, tell me." The boy was forgiven, and sheltered from future blame by the king. How this reminds us of what God has done for believers. We are forgiven, sheltered, and defended. "In whom we have redemption, even the forgiveness of sins."-Eph. i. 4. "If God be for us, who can be against us?"-Rom. viii. 31. KANGAROO.-The origin of the name "Kangaroo" is thus described by Mr. F. Buckland :-"When Captain Cook first discovered Australia he saw some natives on the shore, one of them holding a dead animal in his hand. The captain sent a boat's crew ashore to purchase the animal, and finding on receiving it that it was quite new to him, he sent a boatswain back to ask the natives its name. 'What do you call this 'ere animal?' said the sailor to the naked native. The native shook his head and answered, 'Kangaroo,' which means in Australian lingo, 'I don't understand.' When the sailor returned to the ship the Captain said: 'Well, and what's the name of the animal?' The sailor replied, 'Please, sir, the black party says it is Kangaroo.' The Fireside. VISIT YOUR PARENTS. NEVER allow weather, or want of time, or consideration of expense or convenience, to prevent it; visit them often if in the same town, or if at a distance make it a point now and then to go back to the old home, and talk about old times, and tell them how you are doing. They are old now, and are very much alone. There are no young people about the house to attract others, and most of those of their own age have passed away; they need some break in the loneliness of their homes. Every visit of a child is pure happiness, and when the message comes, "They are dead," your first regret will be that you had not done more to make them happy, and to smooth their pathway to their last resting place. TWICE A DAY. On the rocks by the seashore I have seen marine creatures living when the tide was out; not in the briny pools it leaves, but on the dry and naked rock-in the withering air-in the burning, broiling sun. They THE PENNY POST BOX. lived, because, when twice each day the foaming tide came in, and, rising, covered the rocky shelf they clung to, they opened their shut and shelly mouths to drink in water enough to last them when the tide went out, and till the next tide came in. Even so, twice a day also at the least, are we to replenish our thirsty souls-fill our emptiness from the ocean of grace and mercy that flows free and full in Christ, to the least of saints and chief of sinners. In Him dwelleth all the Godhead bodily.-Dr. Guthrie. The Penny Post Box. GIVING WITHOUT MONEY. THE poor give more than the rich. This proposition holds good, as a general principle. Money is by no means the only thing to give in this world; neither do large gifts necessarily contribute more to the happiness of the receiver than small gifts. Go into any country community and converse with the people. Ask who ministers most to their happiness. You will very likely be told of some venerated clergyman, whose salary has never been more than enough to barely support him; or of some poor widow, who goes from house to house, like a ministering angel, wherever sorrow and suffering demands consolation or relief. It is astonishing how much one without money can give! A kind word, a helping hand-the warm sympathy that rejoices with those that do rejoice, and weeps with those who weep! No man is so poor, no woman is so poor, as not to be able to contribute largely to the happiness of those around them. UNFINISHED WORK. NOTHING teaches more impressively man's frailty than his unfinished undertakings. Lying in the quarry near the Syrian city of Baalbec is the largest worked stone in the world, a gigantic block nearly seventy feet in length, almost detached and ready for transportation to its niche in the titanic platform of the Temple of the Sun. It seems as though the workmen had just momentarily left their labours, and we fancy that we must soon see them returning. But forty centuries or more ago some providential emergency called them from their work; and there lies the huge block, and yonder is the cyclopean wall with its vacant niche, one of the most striking and impressive of the unfinished labours of the world. And so the colossal Kutub Minar, though a finished column in itself, is but a fragmentary memorial of a gigantic, unfinished plan; and as such it will doubtless stand to teach many generations yet to come that, though man may propose, heaven will dispose. |