“The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him.” Ps. 25:1.
Just to let thy Father do
What he will;
Just to know that he is true,
And be still.
Just to follow hour by hour
As he leadeth;
Just to draw the moment’s power
As it needeth.
Just to trust him, that is all!
Then the day will surely be
Peaceful, whatsoe’er befall,
Bright and blessed, calm and free.
Just to let him speak to thee
Through his word,
Watching that his voice may be
Clearly heard.
Just to tell him everything
As it rises,
And at once to him to bring
All surprises.
Just to listen, and to stay
Where you cannot miss his voice;
This is all! and thus to-day,
Communing, you shall rejoice.
Just to ask him what to do
All the day,
And to make you quick and true
To obey.
Just to know the needed grace
He bestoweth,
Every bar of time and place
Overfloweth.
Just to take thy orders straight
From the Master’s own command;
Blessed day! when thus we wait
Always at our Sovereign’s hand.
Just to recollect his love,
Always true;
Just to recognize its light,
All unfolding;
Just to claim its present might,
All upholding.
Just to know it as thine own,
That no power can take away.
Is not this enough alone
For the gladness of the day?
Just to trust, and yet to ask
Guidance still;
Take the training or the task,
As he will.
Just to take the loss or gain
As he sends it;
He who formed thee for his praise
Will not miss the gracious aim;
So to-day, and all thy days,
Shall be molded for the same.
Just to leave in his dear hand
Little things,
All we cannot understand,
All that stings.
Just to let him take the care
Sorely pressing,
Finding all we let him bear
Changed to blessing.
This is all! and yet the way
Marked by him who loves thee best;
Secret of a happy day,
Secret of his promised rest.
—F. R. Havergal.
The Steamboat
By A. Smith
The Wonders of a Century.—No. 6.
BY A. SMITH.
The Steamboat.
The idea of propelling water-craft by steam was nearly contemporary in its origin with the introduction of steam locomotion by rail. But the best talent, or the strongest influence, was diverted to the latter enterprise, delaying, for a time, the practical development of the steamboat.
In 1801 William Symington, of England, constructed the Charlotte Dundas, the first practical steamboat ever built; but, although practical, it was not put to a practical use. In 1804 Oliver Evans constructed an engine at Philadelphia, and placed it on a large scow mounted on wheels. This amphibious piece of mechanism was propelled up Market street, and to the Schuylkill, where it was launched, and provided with a stern paddle-wheel. It then sailed down the river, a distance of sixteen miles, to the Delaware.
In 1807 Robert Fulton completed the construction of the steamer Clermont; a decided improvement upon the rude conceptions of English and other inventors. When she made her trip, without the use of sails, against wind and tide, from New York to Albany, the ridicule that had attended the idea of steam navigation was changed to amazement.
“That voyage did more. It spread terror over the surface of the river, and created wide alarm along its borders. The steamboat was an amazing revelation to the fishermen, the farmers, and the villagers. It came upon them unheralded, and seemed like a weird craft from Pluto’s realms, a transfiguration of Charon’s boat into a living fiend from the infernal regions. Its huge black pipe vomiting fire and smoke, the hoarse breathing of its engine, and the great splash of its uncovered paddle-wheels, filled the imagination with all the dark pictures of goblins that necromancers have invented since the foundation of the world. Some thought it was an unearthly monster of the sea ravaging the fresh waters; others regarded it as a herald of the final conflagration at the day of doom. Managers of river craft who saw it at night, believed that the great red dragon of the Apocalypse was loose upon the waters. Some prayed for deliverance; some fled in terror to the shore and hid in the reeds.”
In 1837 the project of establishing a permanent steamship line across the Atlantic was advanced in England at a meeting of the British Scientific Association held at Bristol. The Savannah, an American steamship of three hundred tons, had crossed the Atlantic between New York and Liverpool, partly by steam power, nearly ten years before.
WORSE THAN QUESTIONABLE.
We have before us several items concerning entertainments given by different churches, which fully merit the condemnation implied in the title of this article. One of these items describes a “social reception” given in aid of Sunday-school library. It was held on a Saturday evening, and we read: “The dancing costumes were neatly designed in variegated colors, and comprised fourteen selections.” In another we are told that the ladies of such a church, “will amuse their friends with tableaux, music, vocal statuary, tea-drinking, and social jollity.” And another church seeks to remove some of its financial burdens by securing the performance of an “operetta,” “preceded by the jolly farce, Box and Cox.”
We do not condemn these churches as sinners above all others. It only happens that their doings in this particular are made a little more prominent than the similar doings of some of their neighbors. We take these items as straws which indicate the direction in which the church is running. We are very sure that it is a wrong direction.
We, of course, do not mean that sociability is out of place in connection with a church. On the contrary, we are sure that the reverse is true. But there are certainly some things which, as it seems to us, are entirely out of place in connection with any church enterprise. We do not know how any church can look for the divine blessing upon its labors—and without that the church had better not exist—when it employs the worse than questionable expedients as dancing parties and theatrical performances to replenish its treasury. And it makes comparatively little difference that these entertainments are not given in the church edifice. There is little gain in the sense of fitness, that is all. It is through such inconsistencies as these we have noted that the church is often brought to the very contempt of the world. “Where is the difference,” men of the world ask, “between us and professed Christians? We are as good as they.” And where is there any answer to this question, or denial of this assertion?
At the very best that can be said of them, such endeavors as these are merely expedients. There is a more excellent way, a way upon which the divine blessing can be asked, as it cannot upon this revelry and junketing. And I fail to see why it is any more easy for one to give, through a church fair, for example, than it is to give out and out. If the money is given thus directly, because the object is a good one, the giver can have the happy consciousness that it is done as unto the Lord. A blessing comes to him who thus gives. But if the money goes through the medium of a church fair, or any other catch-penny arrangement, a part of it is of necessity diverted on its passage to the church treasury. Instead of a willing giver, you are a purchaser, who (perhaps) gets the worth of his money; and you receive only the satisfaction of the bargainer, rather than the blessedness of the benevolent soul.
And if this is true of what may be deemed legitimate methods, how far short must those expedients fall which are questionable—or worse? Very many of our churches need a large infusion of Christian conscientiousness in the provisions of their financial support. And this must be on the part of the laity. The Christian pastor, as a rule, meddles at his peril with the financial affairs of the church. His interference, even with what is known and felt to be questionable, is resented. Christian men and women must acknowledge that their connection with the church will cost them something, and must make honest provision for the necessary expenditure. Then there will not be need for the numerous devices for raising money, that are, after all, mere expedients, and which in cases not a few come perilously near incurring the Saviour’s condemnation, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”—Christian Weekly.
ONENESS WITH CHRIST.
By Hannah Whitall Smith
So many of God's children are crying out for a real and vital union with Christ, that it seems important to come to a right understanding of what it consists in, and how to realize it. And I have a few words to say about it, which have been of great practical use to myself, and I trust may be a help to some others.
There is one lesson in the Christian life that most of us are obliged to learn over, and over, and over, at every advance step we take. I myself have had to learn it many times, and I often doubt whether I know it thoroughly yet. It is the lesson of not depending upon frames and feelings as the test or assurance of our spiritual condition. We learn it at one stage and about one thing, only to forget it as soon as a new stage is reached or a new question arises, when it has to be learned all over again.
I remember very well what a revelation it was to me when I first learned it. It was in the very earliest days of my Christian experience, and was in regard to forgiveness. I had no other thought but that my forgiveness depended upon my feelings; that if I felt sweet, and tender, and tender, and earnest, I was forgiven; but if I felt cold, and dead, and languid, I was not forgiven. Consequently my faith varied with my feelings, and I literally made the word of God of none effect by my own changing emotions. It was a grave dishonor to him, but this I never dreamed of, and it was utter misery to me.
Finally some one told me, or else I read it in a book, that frames and feelings had nothing whatever to do with the matter; that my forgiveness was dependent upon how God felt, and not how I felt, and on what he had done, not on what my frame of mind might happen to be. This was a perfect revelation to me. My common sense laid hold of the idea at once, and I saw it was the only reasonable, as well as the only Scriptural, ground to take.
“Of course,” I said to myself, “my feeling must depend upon what I know about it; it is always knowledge that controls feeling, not feeling knowledge. I have been turning the whole thing wrong end before. My forgiveness cannot in any possible way depend upon my feelings. I must find out first whether I am forgiven before I can expect to have any right feelings about it at all.”
I saw also that my feelings, after all, depended very much on the state of my health; if my liver, for instance, was out of order, I could not possibly have any sweet or joyous feelings, no matter how truly forgiven I might be. Our feelings are affected by a thousand things over which we have no control,—by a rainy day, perhaps, or a fog, or some disappointment in our plans, or by the influence of some one's magnetism over us, or by any or all of our varied circumstances and surroundings. But God's word cannot be touched by any of these things, and I saw that if he said I was forgiven, then I was, no matter how I might feel.
But at each step onward I have been confronted by the same conflict between faith and feeling, my feelings always asserting their right to be the deciding element in each new question in the spiritual life. And every time the same ground has had to be gone over as to the foolishness and utter unreasonableness of trying to decide by feeling what could only be decided by God's word.
Now, on no point does this temptation more persistently assail a soul than on this of our real and practical oneness with Christ; and in nothing is the mistake more dangerous. It seems at the first sight as though this at least was a point which must be decided by feeling, and the soul turns inward to examine its own emotions, sure that, however wrong such a course may have been in all previous cases, here at least it is the right and Scriptural thing to do.
I hope to prove in this article the fallacy of such reasoning.
Oneness with Christ must, in the very nature of things, consist in a Christ-like life and character. It is not what we feel, but what we are, that settles this question. No matter how exalted or intense our emotions on the subject may be, if there is not a likeness of character with Christ, a unity of aim and purpose, a similarity of thought and of action, there can be no real oneness.
This is plain common sense, and it is Scripture as well.
We speak of two people being one, and we mean that their purposes, and actions, and thoughts, and desires are alike. A friend may pour out upon us enthusiastic expressions of love, and unity, and oneness; but if that friend's aims, and actions, and ways of looking at things are exactly opposite to ours, we cannot feel there is any real oneness between us, notwithstanding all our affection for each other. To be truly one with another, we must have the same likes and dislikes, the same joys and sorrows, the same hopes and fears.
And oneness with Christ can be judged by no other rule. It is out of the question to be one with him in any other way than the way of nature, and character, and life. Unless we are Christlike in our thoughts and ways, we are not one with him, no matter how we feel.
I have seen Christians with hardly one Christ-like attribute in their whole characters, who yet were so emotional, and had such ecstatic feelings of love for Christ, as to think themselves justified in claiming the closest oneness with him. I scarcely know a sadder sight. Surely our Lord meant to reach such cases when he said in Matt. 7:21: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven.” He was not making here any arbitrary statement of God's will, but a simple announcement of the nature of things. Of course it must be so. It is like saying, “No man can enter the ranks of astronomers who is not an astronomer.” Emotions will not make an astronomer, but life and action. He must be one, not merely feel that he is one.
There is no escape from this inexorable nature of things, and it pursues us here. Unless we are one with Christ as to character and life and action, we cannot be one with him in any other way, for there is no other way. We must be “partakers of his nature,” or we cannot be partakers of his life, for his life and his nature are one. Feeling avails nothing here.
I am afraid I have not made this point as clear as I want to, but must trust that the blessed Spirit will illuminate it to the minds of my readers.—Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith.
(Concluded next week.)
Purity and Delicate Tastes
—A man may corrupt his taste and introduce an element of vulgarism into his expressiveness by careless familiarity with the foul and unlovely. There are a great many men that read books to understand human nature, who do not know that they are pouring filth into the currents of their souls. There are a great many men who, when they are abroad, go to see sights that human eyes ought not to look upon, except they be eyes of mercy looking to save men as brands from the final burning. A man at the center must be thoroughly and immaculately pure, if he would be at the circumference filled with fine sensibilities and delicate tastes so as to appreciate the nobly grand and the singularly beautiful.
MAKING A MAN OF HIM.
By Rose Hartwick Thorpe
Two men stood by the side of Mrs. Mathews' little cottage, conversing in low tones. There was a subdued gravity about their faces, which indicated that their conversation was not a pleasant one. A large lilac bush grew close to the porch where these men stood, and just on the other side, not three feet distant, a youth had thrown himself on the grass in the shade of the lilac bush, whose green foliage completely hid him from observation.
Mark Mathews had not sought this retreat in order to listen to a conversation not intended for him to hear. The base thought that such a motive had actuated him would have brought a flush of shame to his cheek and an indignant flash to his eyes; for, boy as he was, he had his own code of honor, to which he strictly adhered, but which, I am sorry to say, conformed to his own desires and wishes, and rarely compelled him to do anything distasteful or disagreeable. He was thoughtless and careless, perhaps a little selfish, but there were qualities in this boy's character which, under proper influence, would make a noble man of him; while this same peculiarity of temperament would also make him a ready tool in the hands of evil associates to work out his own ruin.
He was naturally indolent, seeming to prefer that which could be done with the least exertion and trouble. He had never aroused himself to any especial action, not even when death had robbed him of a kind father, and had left his poor mother desolate. He had wept and lamented over his loss, without once thinking that his own hands might lighten the burdens of his stricken, sorrowing mother. He had not only ignored the duties and responsibilities which his father's death had necessarily thrown upon him, but had also formed the acquaintance of some idle, dissipated associates; and by following their example, had laid another and a heavier burden upon his mother's frail shoulders. His very act of secreting himself under the lilac bush that spring morning was that, unobserved, he might indulge in a cigar which one of his companions had given him the night before.
The two gentlemen, who were conversing so earnestly on the other side of the bush, were friends of Mr. Mathews, who had come in at the widow's request to examine her husband's accounts and papers, and to ascertain, if possible, just what her prospects for the future were.
Mark was leisurely watching the smoke arise from his cigar, when the voice of one of the gentlemen speaking in an indignant tone aroused his attention.
“A mortgage will have to be put upon the place to meet the indebtedness incurred during Mr. Mathews' sickness. Mrs. Mathews is in a poor condition to meet this extra demand upon her strength. Her long confinement during her husband's illness, together with the grief and mental suffering following his death, have made a heavy drain upon a constitution naturally fragile. If Mark would only arouse himself to action now, and apply all the energies of which he is capable to the task, I am sure that his strong, young arms might be a blessing to her who needs his assistance so much.”
“There is far more danger of his being a curse than a blessing,” answered the other sadly. “Young as he is, he has already formed habits which, I fear, will drag him down to ruin. Mrs. Mathews will be allowed to remain in the cottage for a while, and then her pretty house will be sold, and she will be obliged to go from house to house earning her livelihood, as many another delicately reared woman has done before.”
The two men walked away, down the path, and passed out of the gate together. Slowly Mark arose to a sitting position, the light of aroused energy burning in his eyes. Taking the half-consumed cigar from between his lips, he tossed it far from him, then arising to his feet he walked down the lane, pondering over the truths that had come to him in so disagreeable a form.
“I will show them that Mark Mathews can care for his mother,” he said firmly, the lines about his mouth assuming a determined expression; “and the things they said would come to her, never shall! She shall never go from house to house asking employment while I live.”
A few days previous, Mark had been offered fifty cents a day to work in Mr. Anderson's garden; but the work had seemed hard and the pay small, and he had decided to wait for something better to turn up; but now, with his own resolve burning in his breast, he settled his hat in a decided manner, and going directly to Mr. Anderson's, engaged to do the work. Throwing aside his coat and vest, he took the garden tools and entered upon his new duties with an energy that looked as though he meant to succeed.
When Mark entered the gate on his return home at night, he beheld his mother standing in the door. She was a frail, little woman, and her face had a tired, sorrowful expression that went straight to the boy's heart, and aroused all that was truly good and noble in his nature.
“Poor little mother,” he thought, “they've told her that her home must be mortgaged, and she is grieving over it.”
Going to her side, he put both strong, young arms about her, and snatched a hasty kiss ere she was aware of his presence. This loving act on the part of her boy brought a happy flush to her pale cheeks and a joyous sparkle to her eyes.
“I'm as hungry as a bear, mother,” he said, wiping the perspiration from his heated brow. “I've been at work in Mr. Anderson's garden all day. See, my hands are almost blistered, but they'll get used to it. I've babied them too much. Mr. Anderson is going to give me fifty cents a day and my dinners. It is so far from home that he thinks I'll lose more time coming after them here than the dinners are worth, and the economy will help us as well as him.”
Mark laughed merrily, but his face suddenly sobered, and coming a little closer he added in low tones: “You may count on the whole fifty cents, mother, for never a cent of my money shall go for cigars, or any thing worse, again.”
“O Mark!” she exclaimed joyfully, for his words, answering the earnest desire of her heart, had thrown her completely off her guard. “I believe that I could endure any hardship if I knew that you—”
She hesitated, lest her words should anger him, but he answered solemnly,
“You need not fear that I will disgrace you in that way again, neither. I've smoked my last cigar, and I've drunk my last glass of wine. I heard about the mortgage this morning, and I believe the knowledge has made a man of me. One can never tell what stuff he is made of until he is pushed against the wall, and has to fight his way out. But I'm so hungry.”
As she hastened out to prepare his supper, his eyes followed her, and as he remembered the words he had that morning overheard, he said indignantly,
“The idea of my letting her go out to work, such a frail little mother as she is, too!”
The very thought caused his chest to expand, and his lips to quiver with the emotions that filled his heart. How true it is that many a noble life has been wrecked upon the sea of poverty! Adversity calls into life all the latent energies of heart and brain, it arouses the indomitable will, and sets in action those qualities by which the coveted prize—no matter how lofty the object may be—is sure to be attained. The highest standard of human ambition and excellence has often been attained by the untiring energy and determination of boys who have nothing but the wealth of willing hearts and strength of young arms with which to push themselves through the barriers of oppression and difficulties.
When Mark Mathews arose from under the lilac bush that spring morning, he arose with the determination that a mortgage should never be placed upon his mother's home. And, though the future seemed dark and uncertain, still, he began the task of industriously and energetically applying himself to the present duties, not waiting in idleness for great ones, but advancing step by step, until one day he had the satisfaction of laying in his mother's hand a receipt for their indebtedness.
The look of pride and admiration with which she regarded him; the loving words that quivered on her lips; the pressure of her hand, in a blessing, laid on his head, were sufficient recompense for what he had done, to say nothing of the self-respect which his new mode of life had gained for him.—Rose Hartwick Thorpe.
TRANSFORMATION
By Agnes M. Machar
We planted the bare brown stems one day
When the autumn winds blew cold,
And the dying leaves fell mournfully
In their tarnished red and gold.
And you wondered whether they lived at all,
Those stems so brown and bare,
With never a leaf or a bud so small,
To tell us that life was there.
And yet when the spring hath blessed the earth,
And June smiles warm and bright,
Their glory of roses shall wake to birth
And glow in the summer light!
So we lay them down in their lowly bed,
The dear ones we cherished so,
And night would tell us that they are dead,
And more we may not know.
But faith looks on to the joyful spring
That she tells us shall yet be ours,
And the new life's glorious blossoming
Into fair eternal flowers.
For the secret of life is God's to keep,
Not the wisest sage can tell
How it thrills through the fibers that seem to sleep,
And pours through each hidden cell.
Then well may we wait with patience here,
Nor weep o'er the churchyard sod;
We shall find the lost whom we hold so dear,
In the glorious garden of God.
—Agnes M. Machar, in Christian Weekly.
A SENSIBLE MOTHER.
It is really pitiful to see a good, conscientious little mother resolutely shutting herself away from so much that is best and sweetest in children's lives, for the sake of tucking the dresses and ruffling their petticoats. How surprised and grieved she will be to find that boys and girls, at sixteen, regard “mother” chiefly as a most excellent person to keep them in order and to make new dresses, and not as one to whom they care to go for social companionship! Yet, before they are snubbed out of it by repeated rebuffs, such as, “Run away, I'm busy to listen to your nonsense,” children naturally go to their mothers with all their sorrows and pleasures; and if “mother” can only enter into all their little plans, how pleased they are! Such a shout of delight as I heard last summer from Mrs. Friendly's two little girls! “Oh, good, goody; mamma is coming to play with me.” She was a busy mother, too, and I knew would have much preferred to use what few moments of recreation she could snatch, for something more interesting than playing with little children. She has often said to me, “I cannot see my children grow away from me; I must be right along with them all the time.”—Selected.
A Senator’s Reward for Industrious Daughters
—Senator Sawyer, of Wisconsin, is both practical and affectionate. Calling his young daughters to him one morning, he asked them, as a testimony of their love for him, to learn to make their own clothes and to cook a good dinner. They promised, and not long after invited papa and mamma and a few friends to dine with them. They cooked the dainty dinner, and wore handsome dresses made by themselves. The Senator’s pleasure thereat took form in the shape of a $25,000 check to each.
Christian Character Is a Process
—Christian character is not an act, but a process; not a sudden creation, but a development. It grows and bears fruit like a tree, and like a tree it requires patient care and unwearied cultivation.
EDUCATION AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE.
JOHN FOSTER, in his admirable essay “On the Causes by Which Evangelical Religion Has Been Rendered Unacceptable to Persons of Cultivated Taste,” has offered many practical suggestions, which are worthy of our careful study. That breadth of culture and maturity of religious experience are necessarily incompatible, cannot be successfully maintained. Any false impression upon this subject may be removed by showing that the elements which constitute a genuine religious character are always favorable to sound scholarship, and conversely; and furthermore, by attributing the alleged antagonism to the defects, both in the religious life and in the culture, rather than to any necessary hostility between them; and by pointing the objector to such examples as will illustrate the union of the deepest piety with the most profound intellectual attainments.
This age particularly demands, not a divorcement of education and religion; but, rather, their closest possible identification. The evils entrenched in society can be dislodged, and the plausible pretexts of infidelity can be exposed, only through such a union. Human learning must have a religious basis; more than this, it must be in cordial agreement with Christ’s precepts concerning inward purity. It is likewise true, that Christians should seek to win the confidence, to remove the prejudices, and to encourage the aspirations of all educated minds. When the religious life is exhibited in a manner that deprecates learning, or in a way to needlessly repel thoughtful men, an unwarranted obstruction to true Christian progress is the certain result.
Whatever may be our intellectual pursuit, the highest and purest inspiration is to be derived from religion. We are convinced, however, that this is true in an eminent degree, only when the religious life is sincere, joyous, and progressive; when “looking unto Jesus” is made the daily habit of life; when the will is fully in accord with God’s will in everything; when a sense of his favor has become a fixed, delightful reality; when we watch constantly against the encroachments of a worldly spirit, and boldly protest against sin in society; and, above all, when in humility and trust we wait upon God in unceasing prayer. Such a life in Christ is possible for every believer; and when it is also ennobled by acquired intellectual gifts, the highest possible conditions for service are fulfilled.—Christian Advocate.
No Excellence Without Toil.
By Susie Hoxie
BY SUSIE HOXIE.
Dr. Holland has very beautifully expressed this truth in the following lines:—
“The heights by great men reached and kept,
Were not attained by sudden flight;
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward through the night.”
Wherever we turn our eyes we see this fact proven. Whether we read the history of ages past, or of the present age; whether we are engaged in the vocation of teacher, or in the more pleasing tasks of student's life,—whatever be our calling, it stands as an undeniable fact, that our success in life depends, to a great extent, upon our patient, unremitting labor.
Could we with one bound gain the heights of learning and fame, the name of excellence would lose half its beautiful significance on account of the multitudes that would throng the pages of history. But no; we cannot borrow the wings of the eagle, nor can we at one grand bound gain possession of the highest Alps. We must work if we would excel; we must labor if we would gain distinction. The author of that immortal poem, “Paradise Lost,” was distinguished, even in early youth, for his habit of close, hard study. While his fellow-schoolmates were enjoying their games at play, he might have been seen busily engaged with his lessons. The name of Benjamin Franklin has been enrolled upon the scroll of immortality. But his life was one of constant labor.
Thus it is in the life of a student. “Whatever is in store for him, it will not come at the first trial. The road which leads to knowledge and to excellence is broad but steep, and whoever would gain these heights, must strive with unremitting zeal.”
Bookless Houses.
We form judgments of men from little things about their houses, of which the owner never thinks. Flowers around a rich man's house may signify only that he has a good gardener, or that he has refined neighbors, and does what he sees them do. But men are not accustomed to buy books unless they want them. If, on visiting the dwelling of a man of slender means, we find that he contents himself with cheap carpets, and very plain furniture, in order that he may purchase books, he rises at once in our esteem. Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. The plainest row of books that cloth or paper ever cover, is more significant of refinement than the most elaborately carved etagere or sideboard.
Give us a house furnished with books rather than costly furniture. Both, if you can, but books at any rate. To spend several days in a friend's house, and hunger for something to read, while you are treading on costly carpets, and sitting upon luxurious chairs, and sleeping upon down, is as if one were bribing your body for the sake of cheating your mind.
Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A house without books is like a room without windows. No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them. It is a wrong to his family. Children learn to read by being in the presence of books. The love of knowledge comes with reading, and grows upon it. And the love of knowledge in a young mind is almost a warrant against the inferior excitement of passions and vices.
Let us pity these poor rich men, who live barrenly in great, bookless houses. Let us congratulate the poor that in our day books are so cheap that a man may every year add a hundred volumes to his library for the price of what his tobacco and his beer would cost him. Among the earliest ambitions to be excited in clerks, workmen, journeymen, and, indeed, among all that are struggling up in life from nothing to something, is that of owning, and constantly adding to, a library of good books. A little library, growing larger every year, is an honorable part of a young man's history.
It is a man's duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life.—Episcopalian.
The Priest and Preacher
—Prof. Wilkinson, in an article in the S. S. Times on the “Priest and Preacher,” treating of their respective functions with sharp discrimination, says in respect to his own personal relation as a hearer to the preacher, “I want to feel that I am transacted with.” That the business of the minister is to transact with men’s souls is an idea never to be forgotten, if the form of expression has become a little outworn.
Quoting Aristotle and Shakespeare
—When a man tells you he doesn't believe the Bible, quote something from Aristotle or Shakespeare, and ask in what portion of the Scriptures the same passage occurs, and ten to one he will assure you that he has often read it in the Sacred Book, but he cannot recall the chapter and verse.
American Students in Germany.
There are 7,000 American students in Germany, and they spend, it is estimated, about $4,500,000 annually. Liberal education seems to be a good thing for Germany.
When Grief shall come to thee,
Think not to flee,
For Grief, with steady pace,
Will win the race;
Nor crowd her forth with Mirth,
For at thy hearth,
When Mirth is tired and gone,
Will Grief sit on;
But make of her thy friend,
And in the end
Her counsels will grow sweet;
And, with swift feet,
Three lovelier than she
Will come to thee—
Calm Patience, Courage strong,
And Hope—everlong,
—Henrietta R. Eliot, in Lippincott's Magazine.
PRACTICAL TOPICS.
By C. C. L.
1. Give an account of thy stewardship.—A most wholesome doctrine is that which teaches our accountability to God for the right use of the powers he has given us. Let me know that my abilities are but intrusted to my care to be used for God's glory and his creatures' good; let me grasp the fact that the debasing of my mental, moral, or physical powers to unworthy ends, the squandering of wealth that might relieve want, or the hoarding of means that might spread the truth, is in plain terms an embezzlement of things intrusted to my care; let me believe that I shall be called to account for my stewardship,—and, if I am an honest man desiring to do right, I shall so carefully and faithfully guard my conduct, that my Master may say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
The ability to make money is God-given, and for its proper use we shall be held as responsible as for any other gift. “Do all to the glory of God,” applies to the use of wealth as well as to other matters.
2. Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.—Riches give their possessor the power of doing good. He may so use them as to lay up treasure in Heaven. Ability to accumulate wealth is a valuable gift. Money is necessary to the preaching of the gospel, and to the carrying on of all charitable and religious enterprises; and who shall say that the men who from right motives furnish the means to sustain the message, are not as worthy of reward as those who proclaim it?
“Riches,” says Bacon, “are the baggage of virtue; they cannot be spared nor left behind, but they hinder the march.”
In a sense this is true; but it is certain that the onward march of our cause, so far from being impeded, could with profit carry quite an amount of such baggage.
Again Bacon says: “He that defers his charity till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it rightly) rather liberal of another man's than of his own.” Having clung to his riches through life, his grip is relaxed by death; and, fear directing his loosening fingers over the lap of charity, the poor man lets fall with reluctance the gold he can no longer call his own. “Be your own executor.”
3. The true riches.—Gold has no intrinsic value; it is good only as it ministers to man's necessities.
Money does not constitute the “true riches.” Let us be convinced of this; and let us remember that those only are truly rich who are rich in faith and rich toward God, rich in Christ, in the promises and in the hope of eternal life.
Let us, then, not be deceived by the “mammon of unrighteousness,” but seek the “true riches.” Let us “lay up our treasures in Heaven.” Let us esteem the formation of noble character above the treasures of the world. Let us—
“Follow the Christ, the King,
Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King—
Else, wherefore born?”