2. You have passed through the fields while yet the sun was in the east. The grass was wet, because of...... the dew; ere you had returned, however, the sun had licked it up-it had passed away. But how quickly it must disappear in such a hot climate as that of Palestine ! Such God tells us, through the pulpit, was the goodness of Ephraim and Judah. ADAPTATION.-Ephraim was the principal tribe in the kingdom of Israel, and Judah of the kingdom of Judah. When God thus addresses these two he means the whole......kingdom of Palestine. The Israelites often returned from their idols; but it was but for a short time-their goodness passed away. The sweet incense of their repentance would ascend to heaven; but only to be followed by backsliding. God was ever ready to welcome every sign of turning, but the short-lived goodness passed away. Grieved to see such inconstancy, He says, "What shall I do unto thee? APPLICATION.-Is it thus with you? Your goodness.-It may be, you obey your father and mother just now; but how often have you given them pain. You may sin against them to-morrow. You at times remember there is such an awful Being as God; and you resist temptation. "Thou God seest me." But you forget again and again -Your goodness is as the morning cloud and the early dew which pass away. You try to look to Jesus when you are overpowered by sin; but do you hold on? God may say to you, "What shall I do unto you." And then. punished-He drove them from their native land into banishment. punish us likewise. Let us beware then. Israel was He may Swansea. J. S. REQUISITES TO GOOD SUNDAY SCHOOL ADDRESSES. We want bringing into our Sunday school addresses more striking illustrations, more every day occurrences, and more common place language, to the total exclusion of all hard words. We should also study the manners and habits of children more closely, so as to make our comparisons more easily comprehended. In a word, we want to come down. There are difficulties in the way, but some have encountered and grappled with and overcome them. Why should not more? Why should not this important duty be better discharged? Let us have more speaking from the heart, more attentive preparation, more energy, and a closer imitation of the teaching of our Saviour, who never lost any occasion of making use of the most common occurrences to illustrate his sublime lessons. Most of us know how repulsive it is to listen at times to a discourse void of life, of energy, or awakening thought; we have experienced the difficulty imposed on us to listen to those dry, lifeless sermons. How then can we expect our children to be quiet, if we do not make our little sermons mor attractive. This above all other things certainly ought to be done well. Sloane Square. J. B. TASTES IN DRESS. No female should despise studying dress as an art; by which we mean that exercise of taste and judgment which teaches what style and colour of dress is most becoming to the figure, face, age, &c., and also what fashions and customs best blend and harmonize with each other. The following rules illustrating this subject may be confidently relied on and advantageously applied. Short females should not wear flounces to their dresses, because the undue breadth which it gives to the lower part of the person tends to diminish its height. For the same reason they should not wear large check patterns or stripes running round the dress. Tall females, as a matter of course, may wear their dresses on principles diametrically opposite to this. Stout females should wear dark-coloured dresses and simple patterns, as they diminish the apparent size of the figure; the skirts also should have few or no flounces, except where the figure is above the ordi nary height. Thin females should wear light-coloured dresses, and patterns displaying breadth of design, such as large checks, broad stripes, &c.; flounces may also be freely adopted, as they serve to diminish the angles of the figure, and to impart a certain degree of rotundity. Young females have a wide latitude allowed them for dress; gayer colours and more fanciful styles may be indulged in, so long as they do not amount to over-dressing or unsuitableness. Elderly females should attire themselves in a neat, quiet manner; the materials of their dress should be substantial, the colours dark, and the designs small. Above all things they should avoid a juvenility of style, since, instead of making old people look younger, it has an immediately opposite effect, and only serves to bring out more prominently, and to contrast more painfully, the youth of the dress with the age of the wearer. Dark females look best in light colours, which supply a pleasing contrast to the complexion; or in yellow, which sheds a subdued violet hue favourable to brunettes. Fair females appear to the best advantage in black, on account of the contrast which is derived from it; or in light green, or sky blue, both of which colours possess the power of imparting to pale or fair complexious what are called complimentary tints.-Dictionary of Daily Wants. MOTHER'S LOVE. LAMARTINE tells a story that exquisitely illustrates a mother's love. "In some spring freshet, a river wildly washed its shores, and rent away a bough, whereon a bird had built a cottage for her summer hopes. Down the white and whirling stream drifted the green branch, with its wicker cup of unfledged song; and fluttering beside it, as it went, the mother bird. Unheeded the roaring river, on she kept, her cries of agony and fear piercing the pauses of the storm. How like the love of the old fashioned mother, who followed the child she had plucked from her heart, all over the world. Swept away by passion that child might be, it mattered not; bearing away with him the fragments of the shattered roof-tree, though he did, yet that mother was with him, a Ruth through all his life, and a Rachel at his death. SICK BEDS OF CHILDREN. YEARS of my life have been spent, day after day, by the sick beds of children. I have made friendships with them on their little pallets, sometimes visiting at their own poor homes a score in a day, and now and then keeping a night-long watch by one of them. I know too well what a vain struggle of love it is when mothers, living by the toil of their bodies, after hard labor by day, deny themselves their sleep by night-fathers do that only when death is near. There is a refinement in poor women that is seldom to be found among poor men, which often shines with a pure lustre by the sick bed of a child. It is very beautiful and pitiful; it prompts to perform so much, those who can really achieve so little. Little, I mean in man's eyes; much, we know, in God's; it rises and falls with a rapid tide. Fatal disease runs its course often with a rapidity unknown among adults; a trifling matter, noticeable in the morning, may become serious if not observed and attended to before (the noon, deadly if left unnoticed until night. If we knew all the causes of the terrible mortality among young children in this country, we should fill England with hospitals for children, and the rich would be almost as ready as the poor to use them. In them only is it possible for each one of the little sufferers to be watched even from hour to hour by an eye specially trained to observe the turn peculiar to the disease of a child. Such diseases are unlike those of adults; they never are so hopeless, and yet they are infinitely more beset with risk of In the homes of the unexpected turns produced by unexpected causes. poor those unexpected causes are, in a vague sense, expected hurts. It is impossible, with the best care, to protect the child against imprudence and negligence in some one among a household of people ignorant and little trained to think, who often are most dangerous when they open only the impulses of love. THE DIFFERENCE OF MEN. THE difference of men is very great. You would scarce think them to be of the same species, and yet it consists more in the affection than in the intellect. For as in the strength of body two men shall be of an equal strength, yet one shall appear stronger than the other, because he exercises and puts out his strength, the other will not stir nor strain himself. So it is in the strength of the brain: the one endeavours, and strains, and labors, and studies, the other sits still, and is idle, and takes no pains, and, therefore, he appears so much the inferior.—Selden. NOBLEST WORK. IT requires great wisdom and industry to advance a considerable estate; much art, and contrivance, and pains, to raise a great and regular building; but the greatest and noblest work in the world, and an effect of the greatest prudence and care, is, to rear and build up a man, and to form and fashion him to piety and justice, and temperance, and all kind of honest and worthy actions. Now, the foundations of this great work are to be carefully laid in the tender years of children, that it may rise and grow up with them; according to the advice of the wise man. "WISE MEN LAY UP KNOWLEDGE."-PROV. x. 14. A SHORT SERMON FOR CHILDREN. IN Eastern Countries men lay up garments, and pride themselves in the number of their suits of apparel. In our land, men lay up money. But this is not "wisdom." In Egypt, Joseph laid up corn for the day of famine; and in Syria men lay up water for the summer in cisterns under their houses. This is wisdom; but still it is not the wisdom of which Solomon speaks. The astronomer lays up the knowledge of the stars; and the botanist lays up the knowledge of plants and flowers. This is wisdom, but it is not that of which the text speaks. The knowledge of that which is best for us is the knowledge of God Himself; and though the knowledge of His works is good, the knowledge of Himself is far better. It is only this knowledge that can make you happy, or bring blessing to your soul. A scholar once turned away from a poor man, smiling at him, and saying, "He does not know the name of Plato." Yet that same poor man knew something which the learned man did not know,-something far better than the name of Plato; he knew the name of God; and that name was the light of his soul, the joy of his heart. It is a great thing, my dear children, to know God,—the living and the true God; and it is a sad thing not to know Him; for to know Him is everlasting life. It was to make Him known to us that the Son of God took man's flesh upon Him, and came into our world, that by what He was, and what He did, and what He said, we might know the Father and the Father's love. This is the true knowledge, in having which we become wise, and without which we are fools. This is the knowledge which we are to "lay up;' adding to our stores of it every hour. You are sent to school for education; and you know that education is the training of the mind in knowledge, and of the will in obedience. Now this is the education which the Son of God came to give us, and by which He fits us for His kingdom. From Him, through the Holy Spirit, we get the heavenly knowledge and the heavenly blessing, for He said, "Learn of Me." Let us go to Him for that knowledge which saves, and heals, and comforts. Store it up; it is the only substantial knowledge, the only knowledge to be relied upon; and, unlike the transitory acquirements of this world, it corrupteth not, it fadeth not away, but abideth for ever, to those that fear the Lord. A poor woman, that could not read a word, once said to me, "You see I'm no scholar; but I'm Christ's scholar, and that will do." Yes, it was enough; for it made her "wise unto salvation." She was one of the wise women that "lay up knowledge." Dear children, this is the knowledge which you must have. Where will you find it? Why, in the Bible; and the Holy Spirit is most willing to become your teacher. The General Reader. CLEANLINESS. EASTERN DERVISES. Cleanliness may be considered under In Hindostan, are dervises who bethe three following remarks. First, take themselves to the top of hills it is a mark of politeness, for no one shaded with trees, where they fix unadorned with this virtue can go their habitations, and from which into company without giving a mani- they will not stir. Their usual form fest offence. Secondly, cleanliness of prayer is uttered with a loud voice, may be said to be the foster-mother of and is, "Almighty God! vouchsafe to affection. Beauty commonly produces look upon me: I love not the world, love, but cleanliness preserves it. Age but thee, and I do all this for thy itself is not unamiable, while it is sake." After their retirement they preserved clean and unsullied. In the third place, it bears analogy with purity of mind, and naturally inspires refined sentiments and passions. It is an excellent preservative of health, and several vices destructive both to mind and body, are inconsistent with the habit of it. IDLENESS. suffer their hair and nails to grow, and will rather perish than go out of their cells, depending on the charity of others for the means of support. PATIENT ENDURANCE. Titus, the son of Vespasian, followed his father's example in reservedness and patience, not suffering any person to be prosecuted for speaking disThe ruin of most men dates from respectfully of him. "If they blacken some vacant hour. Occupation is the my character undeservedly," says he, armour of the soul. I remember a" they ought rather to be pitied than satirical poem, in which the devil is punished; if deservedly, it would be a represented as fishing for men, and crying piece of injustice to punish fitting his baits to the taste and them for speaking truth." business of his prey; but the idler, he said, gave him no trouble, for he bit the naked hook. MAN'S CHARACTER. We may judge of a man's character by what he loves-what pleases him. If a person manifests delight in low AN UNJUST PREJUDICE, and sordid objects-the vulgar song The author of the New View of and debasing language; in the misLondon 1708, reports "that one James fortunes of his fellows, or cruelty to Farr, a barber, who kept the coffee animals, we may at once determine house which is now called the Rain- the complexion of his character. On bow, by the Inner Temple Gate, (one the contrary, if he loves purity, moof the first opened in England) was desty, truth-if virtuous pursuits enin the year 1657, presented by the gage his heart, and draw out his inquest of St. Dunstan's in the West, affections-we are satisfied that he is for making and selling a sort of liquor an upright man. A mind debased called coffee, to the great nuisance shrinks from association with the good and prejudice of the neighbourhood." and wise. |