NOTES AND QUERIES-FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY.

Notes and Queries

musical instruments. But still the musicians, the hired mourners, at the house of Jairus, is a case in point.

S. J.-Yes. The act was unusual; A. M.-No. There were other but the event also was exceptional. David's dancing was an expression of the fulness of his own joy. It was like children clapping their hands with glee when anything especially delights them.

H. R. Quite true. The daughter of Herodias was not a modest person, or she would not have done what she did. Q. R.-Let us hear from you again. We will do our best to answer your questions; but, as we lay no claim to infallibility, you must not expect too much.

L. G.-Never fear. God accepts us according to our hearts. He knows what is in man.

C. G. F.-"Almost" is not the best rendering. It should be, "within a very little; or, "in a short time." The first is the truest and best.

S. A.-"Carriages" means, in Acts xxi. 15, not that which carries us, but that which we carry. It would be better-"luggage."

Facts, Hints, Gems, and Poetry.

Facts.

The public debt of Russia is about 1,193,809,956 roubles.

Japan has now a complete post-office system throughout the country.

Seven tons of gold were taken from one mine in Siberia during the year just closed.

Among the Cheviot Hills of Scotland they boast of sheep whose wool will measure eleven and a half inches in length.

Hints.

The devil is not always at one door.

The Czar of Russia has no settled civil list, but every rouble in the government treasury is at his com--George Herbert. mand, and supposed to be his.

The sea holds 60,000,000,000,000 tons of salt. Should the sea be dried up, there would be a deposit of salt over the entire bottom of the ocean 450 feet deep, and if the salt were taken and spread on the land, it would cover it to a depth of 900 feet.

Professor Hitchcock, of Amherst College, digging for fossil bird-tracks near the Connecticut river, has found four tracks measuring a foot from heel to toe, and proportionately wide, which

Believe in Christ, and then the soul and the whole Bible, will be full of light.-Heubner.

The reputation of a man is like his shadow-gigantic when it precedes him, and pigmy in its proportions when it follows him.-Talleyrand.

Examples would indeed be excellent things were not people so modest that none will set, and so vain that none will follow them.-Augustus Hare.

Of the dark parts of revelation there are two sorts; one which may

FACTS, HINTS, GEMS, AND POETRY.

THE MAN AT THE WHEEL.

IN a voyage of a hundred and eleven days to San Francisco, and thence to the Sandwich Islands, China, East Indies, and New York, there was a man at the wheel every moment, day and night, in storm and sunshine. Every man, except the officers, was in his turn two hours at a time during the whole voyage the man at the wheel. Not till the word of command was given inside the Golden Gate, "Let go the anchor," was the wheel deserted. Every two hours the man at the wheel was relieved by some shipmate who knew when it came his turn. The man at the wheel would say what point of the compass must be kept in mind; the man taking his place would repeat his words. "South-west by south half south," says the man who seizes the wheel to take his place.

Going on deck at midnight there is the man at the wheel. Coming up to watch the sunrise you salute the man at the wheel. During a gale, if you venture on deck curious to see the swelling ocean, you find the man at the wheel. In a dead calm, the ship motionless, there stands the man at the wheel. The sea runs high, the wave looks down upon you as though it would swallow you up. "Meet her!" cries the mate; the man at the wheel swings the bowsprit in the teeth of the billow; you go up to the heavens-then down again into the deep.

You always feel on shipboard that there is one man doing something for you. During divine service on Sabbath morning, two men at least are always absent; one, the officer of the deck, the other, the man at the wheel. If you start in your sleep, you instantly think-there is at least one who is awake, the man at the wheel. I never passed him day or night without giving and receiving a salutation. You feel that he is your personal friend.

The compass lies directly in front of the wheel; the binnacle lamp shines all night upon the compass, which points the way the ship is headed, and the man at the wheel is told to keep her so. If the wind sets her off her course, the endeavour is to get as near to it as the wind will allow, keeping the sails "full and by" the wind, the steersman using his discretion how to do so.

One cannot see himself thus continually kept on his course through the deep without being reminded that if he is a child of God, he has Christ Jesus as the man at the wheel to his soul as truly as at every moment of a voyage, however long, he has a man at the wheel of his ship. Without presumption, but with the utmost confidence, with full assurance of faith, every one who loves God may say to the Saviour, "Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel,

THE ETERNAL YOUTH OF HOMER.

and afterward receive me to glory."

He may be as confident of the incessant guidance of his soul by Christ, as the passenger is of the perpetual service of a man at the wheel.

It used to occur to me-Suppose that instead of having twentyeight men taking turn, each of them two hours at a time, to steer me across the globe, the service were done by a single man, who, day and night, should be my steersman, standing every moment at the wheel, buffeted by the gale, pelted by the rain, scorched by the sun, straining every sense in the dark nights to guard against collisions, till finally I should see the anchor dropped in the desired haven, without any casualty, delay, loss, or damage from the beginning to the end of the voyage, I could not part with that man without emotions unutterable. Yet here I am on the voyage of life with One at the wheel who has been there from my infancy to the present hour, to whom I may with joyful confidence repeat those words, "Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory."

We bless the memory of this translator who used the word "shalt" in this passage, instead of "wilt." He lets David here speak not prophetically, but trustfully, confiding himself to divine guidance, not merely foretelling that he will be guided, but declaring his willingness to be. There may be all the difference between believer and unbeliever in saying "shalt" rather than "wilt" in such a case as this; whether you, as from the heart, avouch the Lord God to be your supreme Ruler, or merely declare that He will be. Using here the word "shalt," implies a cordial choice of divine guidance. He who has made such choice has the hand of infinite love on his helm. Some helms seem to have no hand upon them. They steer wild. They are blown about; sometimes they are in the trough of the sea; they have broached to; some of them go down for ever.

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THE ETERNAL YOUTH OF HOMER.

THE "Iliad" is from two to three thousand years older than Macbeth," and yet it is as fresh as if it had been written yesterday. We have there no lesson save in the emotions which rise in us as we read. Homer had no philosophy; he never struggles to press upon us his views about this or that; you can scarcely tell, indeed, whether his sympathies are Greek or Trojan; but he represents to us faithfully the men and women among whom he lived. He sang the tale of Troy, he touched his lyre, he drained the golden beaker in the halls of men like those on whom he was conferring immortality. And thus, although no Agamemnon,

THE MINIMUM CHRISTIAN.

king of men, ever led a Grecian fleet to Ilium; though no Priam sought the midnight tent of Achilles; though Ulysses and Diomed and Nestor were but names, and Helen but a dream; yet, through Homer's power of representing men and women, those old Greeks will still stand out from amidst the darkness of the ancient world with a sharpness of outline which belongs to no period of history except the most recent.

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For the mere hard purposes of history, the "Iliad" and Odyssey" are the most effective books which ever were written. We see the hall of Menelaus, we see the garden of Alcinous, we see Nausicaa among her maidens on the shore, we see the mellow monarch sitting with ivory sceptre in the market-place, dealing out genial justice. Or, again, when the wild mood is on, we can hear the crash of the spears, the rattle of the armour as the heroes fall, and the plunging of the horses among the slain. Could we enter the palace of an old Ionian lord, we know what we should see there; we know the words in which he would address us. We could meet Hector as a friend. If we could choose a companion to spend an evening with over a fireside, it would be the man of many counsels, the husband of Penelope.-Froude's Science of History.

THE MINIMUM CHRISTIAN.

THE minimum Christian! And who is he? The Christian who is going to be saved at the cheapest rate possible; the Christian who intends to get all the world he can, and not meet the worldling's doom; the Christian who aims to have as little religion as he may, without lacking it altogether.

The minimum Christian goes to church in the morning, and in the afternoon also, unless it rains, or is too warm or too cold, or he is too sleepy, or has a headache from eating too much dinner. He listens most respectfully to the preacher, and joins in the prayer and praise. He applies the truth very judiciously-sometimes to himself, often to his neighbours.

The minimum Christian is very friendly to all good works. He wishes them well; but it is not in his power to do much for them. The Sabbath school he looks upon as an admirable institution, especially for the neglected and the ignorant. It is not convenient, however, for him to take a class. His business engagements are so pressing during the week that he needs Sunday as a day of rest; nor does he think himself qualified to act as a teacher. There are so many persons better prepared for this important duty, that he must beg to be excused. He is very friendly to home and foreign missions and colportage, and gives