POETRY.

through his Spirit!" Every true Christian is a temple of the Lord.

Not only God's glory shall inhabit the structure, but all our hopes for eternity are in it too. Let every man, therefore, take heed how he buildeth; for the day shall declare it. The Architectin-Chief shall come to inspect every man's work "of what sort it is."

An engineer of a bridge for three or four years was not able to leave his house on account of sicknes. The structure was put up according to his plans, but he never saw it until it was finished. When they brought him up the river on a tug, and the great engineer caught his first view of the magnificent towers, and the festoonery of wire, he exclaimed-" Oh, it looks just as I expected it would!" Happy that servant of Christ who, on the day of judgment, can behold the completed structure of his life, and exclaim, "Thanks be to God's grace! it looks just as I expected it would, and just as my Master taught me to build it !"

Poetry.

RESIGNATION.

To die, dear Lord, and be with Thee were gain,
To leave the toil, the tumult, and the strife,

The cares, the feverish pleasures, and the pain,

The hopes, the fears, the joys that make up life;

To know that home, and heaven, and rest are won;-
Yet, if it be my lot to do and bear

Through lengthened years of toil, and pain, and care—
Father, Thy will be done.

If 'tis thy pleasure, through life's lengthened hours,
That love, and peace, and plenty round me rest;
That I may bind amid my sheaves some flowers;
Then I, indeed, am blest:

But if alone my earthly race be run,

And if my eager hands, in life's fair bowers,

Shall meet with thorns where I would gather flowers,-
Dear Lord, Thy will be done.

As my just portion I accept from Thee
Whate'er it is Thy pleasure to bestow.
In whatsoever path Thou leadest me
Unquestioning I go.

Though Thy intent I may not understand,

I tarry not when Thy dear voice I hear.

Through light, or darkness, walk I without fear
If Thou but hold my hand.

THERE are many strange things at the bottom of the sea. the tide washes them up on the shore.

Sometimes These shells are some of these strange things. That large round one in the middle is called a sea-egg, or sea-urchin. It is the house of a sea-animal, and does not like very deep water. The animal moves along by feet that comes out under the hole at the bottom of the shell. The house is all over knobs or bosses, and is marked in a curious way. There are several kinds of these seaurchins. In the great beds of chalk which lie on the south and southeast sides of England, there are great floors of fossil sea-urchins. How many these floors contain it would be very hard to say.

That large shell behind the sea-urchin, with its mouth turned upwards, is the nautilus. This is a shell-fish with sails, which can be spread out like the sails of our boats. The animal, if it is frightened, can fold up its sail in a second, and can sink down to the bottom of the sea, out of the way of danger.

The thing behind the nautilus, which looks like a tree in winter, is a piece of coral. There are whole banks of coral many miles long in some seas. The little animal works slowly, but he keeps on working; and having a good many others like himself who are also working, they built up islands. The tides then bring wood and other things which drift on to the island, then birds carry seeds; and so there is made another beautiful gem in the silver sea.

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

Anecdotes and Selections.

LETTER OF WESLEY TO AN IRISH MINISTER. Be active, be diligent, avoid all laziness, sloth, indolence. Fly from every appearance of it, else you will never be more than half a Christian. Be cleanly. In this let the Methodist take pattern by Quaker. Avoid all nastiness, dirt, slovenliness, both in your person, clothes, and house. Be always sweet above ground; uncleanliness is a bad fruit of laziness; use all diligence to be clean; as one says:

"Let thy mind's sweetness have its operation
Upon thy person, clothes and habitation."

Whatever clothes you have, let them be whole; no rents, no tatters,
no rags.
These are a scandal to any man or woman, being another
fruit of vile laziness. Mend your clothes, or I shall never expect you
to mend your lives. Let none ever see a ragged Methodist. Use no
tobacco unless prescribed by a physician. It is an uncleanly and
un wholesome self-indulgence; and the more customary it is, the more
resolutely should you break off from every degree of evil custom. Use
no snuff unless prescribed by a physician. I suppose no other nation
in Europe is in such vile bondage to this silly, nasty, dirty custom as
the Irish are. Touch no dram. It is liquid fire. It is a sure though
slow poison. It saps the very springs of life. In Ireland, above all
the countries of the world, I would sacredly abstain from this, because
the evil is so general; and to this, and snuff, and smoky cabins, I
impute the blindness which is so common throughout the nation.-
John Wesley, 1769.

POLITENESS OF GREAT MEN.-Truly great men are polite by instinct to their inferiors. It is one element of their greatness to be thoughtful for others. The greatest men in the world have been noted for their politeness. Indeed, many have owed their greatness mainly to their popular manners, which induced the people whom they pleased to give them an opportunity to show their power. Many years ago the errand boy employed by a publishing house in a great city was sent to procure from Edward Everett the proof sheets of a book he had been examining. The boy entered the vast library, lined from floor to ceiling with books, in fear and trembling. He stood in awe of this famous man, and dreaded to meet him. But Mr. Everett, turning from the desk where he was writing, received the lad with re-assuring courtesy, bade him sit down, chatted kindly as he looked for the proof sheets, and asked: "Shall I put a paper around them for you?" as politely as if his visitor were the President. The boy departed in a very comfortable state of mind. He had been raised in his own esteem by Mr. Everett's kindness, and he has never forgotton the lesson it taught him.

WITTY GIRLS.-"Don't put too fine a point to your wit," said Cervants, "for fear it should get blunt." He spoke to men; if he had been addressing young women, he might have said: "Don't put too

ANECDOTES AND SELECTIONS.

fine a point to your wit, for fear it should wound rather than tickle." Men don't take kindly to the sharp, clever young woman who is always hurling her shafts of wit. They not only believe, with Shakespeare, that a "soft, gentle and low voice, is an excellent thing in woman,' but that it should be accompanied by gentle manners and a tender heart. The Philadelphia Times utters thoughts about the too clever young women, the good sense of which makes them worth heeding :"Occasional indulgence in repartee with a bright man or woman is entertaining, but if either insists upon carrying on the game unduly, it becomes a nuisance, and the persisting one lays himself or herself open to the gravest of all social charges, bad style. To talk with a girl who will do nothing but cut and thrust, and whose constant attack necessitates a constant defence, is a bore. Nobody cares to live continuously upon spiced meats.

A LESSON AT THE FURNACE.-In the iron works at Cleveland there is a vast opened-mouthed furnace, into which six tons of metal are thrown at once. The fires are lighted, and an immense fan, revolving twenty thousand times a minute, projects a stream of air through the molten mass with terrific roar, while the flames with lurid glare issue from the top. At first the colour of the smoke is black, then indigo; and finally, when the experienced eye of the master sees the pure, white flame, he stops the blast and stays the heat. Then the metal is laid on a mighty anvil, and hammered by a weight of a hundred and fifty pounds by which the steel is hardened. As in the melting, so in the hardening, the master's knowledge of his business is all important. There is no needless expenditure of fire or force, no waste of blows, and no exposure to the blazing blast after the desired end is accomplished in process of purification and strengthening. Human life abounds in parallel experiences. The elimination of earthly dross from, and the processes by which they are fitted to endure hardness by God's service, are not grateful to the flesh. The thought, however, that God's eye is kindly turned toward us when pain's furnace-heat burns within us, should temper the anguish and hush the complaint. The "need be" of every trial, and the assurance that its continuance is but for a moment compared with the glory to follow, should not only reconcile us to, but make us rejoice in tribulations, with the ejaculation of a victorious faith upon our lips, "Not my will, O Lord, but Thine be done."

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.-It was the habit of the Duke of Wellington to remain to take the sacrament in the church with the other communicants, however humble their lot in life, and however meanly they were dressed. One one occasion a poor, decrepid old man, who had been sitting on the opposite side to the duke, happened to arrive at the communion table at the same moment at which Wellington came up. A pew-owner who was present seemed to be shocked at the thought of a poor old villager taking the sacrament at the same time as the great duke, and so he hurriedly advanced to tell him to draw back. He touched the old man on the shoulder and whispered, "Do you not see the duke? Draw back directly until he has received the

THE FIRESIDE.

bread and wine." The villager, in great alarm, would have instantly retreated, but the Duke, who had witnessed the confusion into which he had been thrown, immediately came to the rescue. Clasping the old man's hand to prevent his rising from his kneeling position, he gently said, "Do not move; we are all equal here."

THE CLOSET.-It remains as true of every personal religious experience as it was of Bethel and Peniel, that there is an incommunicable secret of the Lord in these interviews, and that no telling and no record can unlock this secret. He who has gone into this councilchamber of God comes out with a hush of reverence on his lips and a sense of bewildered awe in his heart. Like Peter, he wists not what to say; like Paul, he cannot tell whether in or out of the body. But after such an experience, faith is unshakable. That man will smile away all your intellectual doubts, looks complacently, and yet unmovedly, on all your argument. Pelt him with evidence that he must be wrong, he will scarcely deign to reply. He has given his love, his life, his hope in that presence chamber of the King, and he can live for ages in the new world that the King gave him in that hour of glory. When God wants a man for a great task He enlists him with these incommunicable rites of initiation. And, after having a great personal task for every one of us, He invites us to receive from Himself the inspiring, soul-staying secret.

DO EVERYTHING WELL.-If you have something to attend to, go about it coolly and thoughtfully, and do it just as well as you can. Do it as though it were the only thing you had ever to do in your life, and as if everything depended upon it; then your work will be well done, and it will afford you genuine satisfaction. Often much more depends upon the manner in which things, seemingly trivial, are performed, than one would suppose, or that it is possible to foresee. Do everything well, and you will find it conducive to your happiness, and that of those with whom you come in contact.

The Fireside.

SLEEP'S TIME.-Sleep obtained two hours before midnight, when the negative forces are in operation, is the rest which most recuperates the system, giving brightness to the eye and a glow to the cheek. The difference in the appearance of a person who habitually retires at ten o'clock and that of one who sits up until twelve, is quite remarkable. The tone of the system, so evident in the complexion, the clearness and sparkle of the eye, and the

softness of the lines of the features, is, in a person of health, kept at "concert pitch" by taking regular rest two hours before twelve o'clock, and thereby obtaining the "beauty of sleep" in the night. There is a heaviness of the eye, a sallowness of the skin, and an absence of that glow in the face which renders it fresh in expression and round in appearance, that readily distinguishes the person who keeps late hours.